The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-04-26
The Redomesticatlon of the African Ele.
 Dhant.

Germany, which feels the want of a
 reliable beast of burden in her East Af-
 rican territory even more than Eng
 land, seems to have resolved on the re-
 domestication of the African elephant,
 Some time ago a German officer com
 menced a series of visits to the Indian
 "keddahs," and after mastering as far
 as possible the Indian methods and sys-
 tenn of catching and training wild ele-
 plants, has hired a staff of experienced
 Indian catchers and trainers. and Is to
 establish a government elephant stud"
 in German East Africa. Commenting
 on the chances of the success of this en-
 terprise Mir Carl Hagenbeck, proprie-
 tor of the Geological Gardens at Ham
 burg and New York, has contributed an interesting article to the Hamburger
 Nachrichten.
 MT, Hagenbeck's paper takes the form of plea for the preservation of the African elephant But with him preservation is merely the necessary preliminary to their redomestication, for
 
 reasons which should be very encoura- ging to those now pledged to the under taking. MT. Hagenbeck writes with authority on the subject. Out of two hundred African elephants brought to- Europe in recent years he has imported one hundred and seventy and many of these have remained In his geological gardens at Hamburg and in America. With the histories of the rest since they passed into other hands he is perfectly familiar. He was recently able to tell the present writer the exact number of African elephants, and the owner of each, in the different countries of Flu rope; and he has a natural insight into the ways and means of animal domes- tication. He gives 1t as his opinion that the general belief that African ele- phants are not so strong as, are wilder, and less easily tanned, and possess less endurance than, the Indian species, is wrong" He maintains, on the contra ry, that they are stronger, and at least as tractable, and as useful as beasts of burden or to be ridden as Indian ele- plants; and he claims to have con vinced the Berlin Geographical society that this view was correct, as early as 187S when he had a number of African elephants in that city
 It will be quite sufficient for practical purposes if a part only of these antici- pations are realized. If the African el- ephant can be trained and made an obedient slave, 1t will be a factor of enormous importance in district where the tsetse-hy stops all animal carriage, and where for generations hu- man-that is, slave-transport has been the sole means of conveying goods from the interior to the coast. The African elephant may well answer this purpose without becoming such marvel of in- telligence and docility as his Indian rel ative. Moreover, he is not only as strong, but far stronger in mere phys sique than the Indian, the males being on an average, two feet and the females one foot higher than the Asiatic species Whether they have quite the same mas sive dray-horse build may be doubted; but for most purposes they would prob ably be even more serviceable as beasts of burden, and the question of general would hardly arise in the case of animals used in their own coun- try, as these would be in the German Spectator.