A few days later, answering to the call of elephant, I came on a herd of cows, one of which I shot, hoping to be able to send the calf into Fort Gerry. The little fellow stood about 3 ft. high, and stalked towards us in the most majestic manner, rumbling and grunting on a 12 ft. scale at least. So confident was his advance that my boys, guns and all, fled without more ado, and it was only when I had caught him by the tail that they ventured back. His strength was amazing, and it needed the united efforts of myself and four boys to throw him. However, we eventually managed to tie his legs together, and laid him under a tree squealing and shrieking like a steam-engine. Whether in his vocal efforts he broke a blood-vessel, or whether owing to the heat of the sun, the sad fact remains that after I had made all arrangements for his transport to Fort Gerry he left the earthly trials of pitfalls and 4-bores at sunset. I was very much disappointed, as I had hoped that if he had survived he might have been of service in the future, should a progressive Government, departing from the usual practice of thinking of the matter when it is too late, endeavour to make use of the vast transport treasure that is now roaming the papyrus swamps of Toro. In the greater part of Africa the elephant is now a thing of the past; and the rate at which they have disappeared is appalling. Ten years ago elephant swarmed in places like B.C.A., where now you will not find one. Still, there is yet an accessible stronghold of the pachyderm in Toro, where at the lowest possible estimate there must be fifteen thousand elephant. Why is not an effort made, and that at once (for in a few years’ time it will be too late), to secure this vast means of transport to posterity? What an inestimable boon to the country, and what an easy solution of half the labour problem that is already such a thorn in the side of the southern administrations! I suppose it is on the same principle on which a paternal Government sends its servants out to a pestilential spot where the sole recreation is shooting, and then forbids them that recreation, while allowing every native who can command a gas-pipe and a handful of powder to sally forth and slay a tithe of what he wounds, regardless of sex and age; or on which the same paternal Government allows the aforesaid servants to take out and pay for a licence permitting them to shoot two elephant, and then confidentially informs them that all ivory shot by servants of the Protectorate, either within or without the Protectorate’s dominions, is the property of the Government; however (note the wild, unreasoning generosity), servants returning home may, with the permission of the Commissioner, be allowed to take a pair of tusks as a trophy. Upon what possible theory this preposterous claim is based I fail to conceive, unless the Government assumes that the leisure of their servants is included in their salary,