240 
THE ELEPHANT. 
species in existence, namely, the African (Loxodonta 
Africana), and the Indian (Elephas Maximus , Lin.). 
As regards Africa, the elephant is found through¬ 
out all the more central portions of that vast Con¬ 
tinent, as high up, at least, as Abyssinia. Its limits 
to the southward would appear to be about the 
32nd degree of latitude. Little more than a century 
ago it was an inhabitant of the Cape Colony, 
where, by all accounts, the breed is now extinct. 
Thunberg, in his second journey into Caffraria, in 
1773, informs us, indeed, that he met with a man 
who told him “ that in his younger days the elephant 
was very numerous in the Dutch possessions, even 
to near Cape Town itself; that in travelling to and 
from that place one might kill great numbers of 
them ; that he himself had often shot from four to 
five in a day, and sometimes twelve or thirteen ; and 
that twice in his life, when he was out in pursuit of 
those animals, he had shot with his own gun twenty- 
two each day.” 
Sparman says cc that, in the country near the 
Cape, elephants are sometimes seen in large herds, 
consisting of many hundreds; and that, in the more 
remote and unfrequented parts of the interior, they 
are still more numerous.” 
Indeed, since the introduction of fire-arms, the 
increased value of the tusks, and the esteem in 
which the flesh of the elephant is held by the 
natives, who slaughter both females and young 
without mercy, the number of these animals, as 
regards Southern Africa, would seem to be every¬ 
where rapidly decreasing; and if the destruction 
