242 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
as wellnigh to bring about the mighty beast's utter extermi¬ 
nation. Ivory hunters and ivory traders have penetrated 
Africa to the haunts of the elephant since centuries before 
our era, and the elephant's boundaries have been slowly 
receding throughout historic time; but during the century 
just past its process has been immensely accelerated, until 
now there are but one or two out-of-the-way nooks of the 
Dark Continent to the neighborhood of which hunter and 
trader have not penetrated. Fortunately the civilized 
powers which now divide dominion over Africa have waked 
up in time, and there is at present no danger of the exter¬ 
mination of the lord of all four-footed creatures. Large 
reserves have been established on which various herds of 
elephants now live what is, at least for the time being, an 
entirely safe life. Furthermore, over great tracts of terri¬ 
tory outside the reserves regulations have been promul¬ 
gated which, if enforced as they are now enforced, will 
prevent any excessive diminution of the herds. In British 
East Africa, for instance, no cows are allowed to be shot 
save for special purposes, as for preservation in a museum, 
or to safeguard life and property; and no bulls with tusks 
weighing less than thirty pounds apiece. This renders 
safe almost all the females and an ample supply of breeding 
males. Too much praise cannot be given the governments 
and the individuals who have brought about this happy 
result; the credit belongs especially to England and, to va¬ 
rious Englishmen. It would be a veritable and most tragic 
calamity if the lordly elephant, the giant among existing 
four-footed creatures, should be permitted to vanish from 
the face of the earth. 
But of course protection is not permanently possible 
