AN AFRICAN ELEPHANT

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 117, 4 February 1918, Page 8

AN AFRICAN ELEPHANT

0 r DIFFICULT PROBLEM TO DOMESTICATE. There is a generally rooted belief that though the Asiatic elephant can be tamed and made of use to man, it is not possible to do so with tho African elephant, though we know from Roman history that the Carthaginians used war elephants and had learnt to tame them, probably from the Numidians, said to be the ancestors of the modern Berbers of North Africa. But though it has not been tried in modern times, the experiment is well worth attempting, but no systematic trial seems ever to have been made. For a long timo naturalists havo advocated some systematic effort to use the African elephant as a beast of draught and burden. The late Mr. A. D. Bartlett, from his experience at the London Zoological Gardens, expressed his belief that if properly managed it would become quite as valuable and useful as the Indian species, being easily mado obedient. And yet we seldom hear of an African elephant being traintd either- in Africa or elsewhere. A few yoars ago, however, at Fernanvar, in the French Congo, one of the Catholic missionaries, Pero Bichet, made an experiment of the kind which proved quite successful. He bought from the hunters of a native- tribe a young elephant which those people had captured at a little distance, and by kind treatment and good feeding succeeded in making it so docile _ tlmt it would not only carry gouds on its back, but would also draw a car in which the missionaries wore able to journey from one part of tho country tn another. There was an account of this animal, with a portrait of it in harness, published iii one of tho missionary reports from Fernanvar, but it seems to have been lost. The account, however, was sufficiently encouraging to suggest further experiments elsewhere. j