elephant too much for them and finally gave up the attempt. Now they are being shot only as they come out to molest the natives, with the result that they are able to persist in the bush in limited numbers. Uganda also has official elephant killers wherever the elephants make trouble in the natives' gardens. In British East Africa and in Tanganyika a similar situation exists. The game must eventually disappear as the country is settled, and with it will be wiped out the charm of Africa.
We had heard much of Ruindi Plains in the Belgian Congo as the wonderful game country that it no doubt used to be. To me it seems avast graveyard. There, too, commercialism has played its part in exterminating the animals and, while we found two or three species of antelope and many lions, other large game is very rare. I suppose that the Ruindi Valley was discovered among the last of the great game pockets and that ivory poachers are responsible for the disappearance of much of the other game as well as of the elephant. The forested valley, which I went through for perhaps ten miles, carried every evidence of having been a wonderful game country in the past, but only a pitiful remnant of the splendid animals who once made it their home remains. Along great elephant boulevards, all overgrown, weaving through the forest, one may occasionally track a single elephant or a small band. A small herd of buffalo grazes where a few years ago there were great numbers.
In our journey north from Cape Town by rail we saw not a single head of game until we reached the
