BIG GAME HUNTING 
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CH. X] 
hippos, rhinos, or buffaloes ; but they are so eagerly 
sought after by ivory hunters that it is only rarely that 
they get the chance to become really dangerous to life, 
although in many places their ravages among the crops 
are severely felt by the unfortunate natives who live 
near them. 
The chase of the elephant, if persistently followed, 
entails more fatigue and hardship than any other kind 
of African hunting. As regards risk, it is hard to say 
whether it is more or less dangerous than the chase of 
the lion and the buffalo. Both Cuninghame and 
Tarlton, men of wide experience, ranked elephant¬ 
hunting, in point of danger, as nearly on the level with 
lion-hunting, and as more dangerous than buffalo¬ 
hunting ; and all three kinds as far more dangerous 
than the chase of the rhino. Personally, I believe the 
actual conflict with a lion, where the conditions are the 
same, to be normally the more dangerous sport, though 
far greater demands are made by elephant-hunting on 
the qualities of personal endurance and hardihood and 
resolute perseverance in the face of disappointment and 
difficulty. Buffalo, seemingly, do not charge as freely 
as elephant, but are more dangerous when they do 
charge. Rhino when hunted, though at times ugly 
customers, seem to me certainly less dangerous than 
the other three ; but from sheer stupid truculence 
they are themselves apt to take the offensive in un¬ 
expected fashion, being far more prone to such aggres¬ 
sion than are any of the others—man-eating lions always 
excepted. 
Very few of the native tribes in Africa hunt the 
elephant systematically. But the ’Ndorobo, the wild 
bush people of East Africa, sometimes catch young 
elephants in the pits they dig with slow labour, and 
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