400 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
pipe, once or twice whinnying or neighing; but usually 
making a succession of grunts, or bubbling squeals through 
the nostrils. The long grass was traversed in all directions 
by elephant trails, and there was much fresh sign of the 
huge beasts—their dung, and the wrecked trees on which 
they had been feeding; and there was sign of buffalo also. 
In middle Africa, thanks to wise legislation, and to the 
very limited size of the areas open to true settlement, there 
has been no such reckless, wholesale slaughter of big game 
as that which has brought the once wonderful big game 
fauna of South Africa to the verge of extinction. In certain 
small areas of middle Africa, of course, it has gone; but 
as a whole it has not much diminished, some species have 
actually increased, and none is in danger of immediate 
extinction, unless it be the white rhinoceros. During the 
last decade, for instance, the buffalo have been recovering 
their lost ground throughout the Lado, Uganda, and British 
East Africa, having multiplied many times over. During 
the same period, in the same region, the elephant have 
not greatly diminished in aggregate numbers, although the 
number of bulls carrying big ivory has been very much 
reduced; indeed the reproductive capacity of the herds 
has probably been very little impaired, the energies of the 
hunters having been alrdost exclusively directed to the 
killing of the bulls with tusks weighing over thirty pounds 
apiece; and the really big tuskers, which are most eagerly 
sought after, are almost always past their prime, and no 
longer associate with the herd. 
But this does not apply to the great beast which was 
the object of our coming to the Lado, the square-mouthed 
or, as it is sometimes miscalled, the white, rhinoceros. 
