NATIVE IMPRESSIONS REGARDING THE WAR 139 
of war brought me several cases of drugs and two of 
bandages, the last a gift from a lady supporter, so that 
I am now provided with what is necessary for carrying 
on the hospital for some months. The goods for Africa 
which were not sent by this vessel are still lying on the 
quays of Havre and Bordeaux. Who knows when they 
will arrive, or whether they will get here at all ? 
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* * 
I am worried, however, about how to provide food 
for the sick, for there is something like a famine in the 
district — ^thanks to the elephants ! People in Europe 
usually imagine that where " civilisation ” comes, the 
wild animals begin to die out. That may be the case 
in many districts, but in others the very opposite 
happens, and that for three reasons. First, if, as is 
often the case, the native population diminishes, there 
is less hunting done. Secondly, what hunting is done 
is less successful, for the natives have forgotten how 
to trap the animals in the primitive but often extremely 
ingenious manner of their ancestors, and have got 
accustomed to hunting them with firearms. But in 
view of eventual possibilities it has been for years the 
policy of aU Governments in Equatorial Africa to allow 
the natives only small quantities of gunpowder ; nor 
may they possess modern sporting guns ; they can only 
have the old flintlocks. Thirdly, the war on the wild 
animals is carried on much less energetically because 
the natives no longer have the time to devote to it. 
At timber felling and rafting they earn more money 
than they can by hunting, so that the elephants 
flourish and increase in numbers almost unhindered, 
and the results of this we are now beginning to 
