216 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
nor age respected, or thought of, ten to twenty animals 
wounded and lost for every head that is procured. In 
short, a brutal, wasteful, sickening, and senseless massacre. 
I do not imply that such things are being done; but they 
have been done in the past, hence this warning for the 
future is justified. 
Another grave (and strictly cognate) danger to game 
arises from tampering with the strictly personal right to 
shoot game under licence. No delegation of that right 
is legal, and on no pretext whatever should any delegation 
be permitted. Consider how any laxity in the law would 
operate. Every Government official, military or other, 
is entitled for a trifling sum (I think £ 6 ) to shoot big- 
game, including two elephants which may represent a 
cash-value of ^ioo, or even much more—at the present 
value of ivory, treble or quintuple that sum! Now an 
official is not, ipso facto , a sportsman at all; he is not 
always British, some are Egyptians, some Sudanese, or 
even foreigners of sorts. The danger of the lucre lure 
is obvious. Any such (hypothetical) official—though he 
may not have the faintest flame of sporting instinct in 
his breast—may pay up the paltry fee and then send 
forth a posse of his savage subordinates to secure the 
two permitted elephants, and, incidentally, whatever else 
they choose to, and can slaughter. The identical result 
follows, as in the case previously foreshadowed — that 
is, wanton, wasteful wounding and loss. No game, how¬ 
ever abundant, can long withstand such treatment. 
To the Sudan, its big-game counts as one of the 
most valuable of assets. It is worth preserving, even if 
only regarded on that low level of appreciation. The 
functions of the Game-Superintendent should be esteemed 
as of supreme importance, and his office count second only 
to that of its Chancellor of the Exchequer! 
