ELEPHANTS. 
55 1 
four hundred elephants standing drowsily in the shade of the detached clumps of 
mimosa-trees. Such a sight I had never seen before, and never saw again. As 
far as the eye could reach, in a fairly open country, there was nothing but 
elephants. I do not mean in joined masses, but in small separate groups. Lying- 
on the pony’s neck, I wormed in and out, looking for the bulls whose ‘ spoor ’ we 
had been following, and while doing so was charged by a very tall, long-legged, 
ugly beast, who would take no denial, and I was obliged to kill him.” 
Pace It has already been stated that the maximum pace of the Indian 
elephant is estimated at about fifteen miles an hour; but this can 
only be maintained for a couple of hundred yards or so, after which the rate 
sinks to eight or six miles an hour. On the other hand, Sir Samuel Baker is of 
opinion that the African elephant might be able to maintain the maximum pace of 
fifteen miles an hour for a hundred yards longer than its Asiatic cousin, and that 
it would settle down to a pace of ten miles an hour, which could be kept up for at 
least that period of time. The relatively longer limbs and stride of the African 
species fully bear out this view as to its speedier movements. 
Senses The sense scen f appears to be very strongly developed in this 
species, inasmuch as it can discover the presence of a human being at 
an immense distance when the wind is favourable. As soon as an elephant scents 
a man, it starts off* at once at a rapid pace, which will be maintained sometimes for 
hours; and since in most parts of Africa the wind is constantly veering, this 
constitutes one of the great difficulties in elephant-stalking. On the other hand, 
the sight of these animals is most defective; and it does not appear that their 
hearing is particularly good. On account of these deficiencies, it is possible to 
approach a wild African elephant from the leeward to within a very short distance ; 
and we have been informed, on good authority, that a hunter once wagered that he 
would write his initials on the hind-quarters of one of these animals while alive, 
and that he actually succeeded in doing so. 
It is somewhat curious that the natives of Africa display no 
Domestication. . , . . 
aptitude for the domestication of the wild animals of their country, 
in which respect they stand in marked contrast to the Malays and other Eastern 
nations. In the later ages of Rome, as shown on coins, the African elephant was 
tamed and exhibited in the arena; and these animals are commonly stated to have 
been employed by the Carthaginians in the Punic wars (b.c. 264-216), no less than 
thirty-seven of them accompanying Hannibal’s army across the Alps. On this 
point, however, Oswell writes as follows:—“ I believe some people suppose the 
Carthaginians tamed and used the African elephants; they could hardly have had 
mahouts, Indian fashion, for there is no marked depression in the nape of the neck 
for a seat, and the hemming of the ears, when erected, would have half smothered 
them. My knowledge does not allow me to raise any argument on this point; but 
might not the same market have been open to the dwellers at Carthage, as was 
afterwards to Mithridates, who, I suppose, drew his supply from India, where they 
have been broken and made to do man’s work from time immemorial.” In a note 
he adds that “ I know in the representations on the medals of Faustina and of 
Septimius Severus the ears are African, though the bodies and heads are Indian ; 
but these were struck nearly four hundred years after Carthaginian times, when 
