AN IVORY TRADER IN NORTH KENIA.
An Ivory Trader in North Kenia. By A. Arkell-Hardwick. (Long- mans and Co. 12s. 6d. net.)—The author, with his companions, took the railway at Mombasa, and followed it as far as Nairobi (Lat. P15 S.) They then struck north-east to Mount Kenia and the Galla Country, north of the Equator. Of ivory-trading they seem to have done very little. Possibly Mr. Arkell-Hardwick does not relate all his experiences in this direction. What he does tell Es is sufficiently amusing, but as the purchase was of two moderate tusks, weighing together about ninety pounds, it does not supply an adequate result for all the trouble taken. But if the ivory is conspicuously wanting, there are many other things about which we may read with pleasure and profit. There are descriptions of local tribes, especially the Burkeneji and Rendili, both nomad peoples, whose hunting-grounds lie to the south of Somaliland. There is much about game, big and little ; and there are tales, more or less harrowing, of animal plagues, from crocodiles down to leeches and mosquitoes. One of the author's companions, known by the sobriquet of "El Hakim," was a great authority on big-game shooting. "Always stalk your game carefully, and get close enough to be certain of your shot ; then hit him hard in the right place, and there you are." But what is meant, it may be asked, by "close enough" ? "From five to twenty yards" was "El Hakim's " measurement. This is a little staggering to the novice, who is apt to think that the great distances which the modern rifle permits are safer. Safer they may be, but what profits it to wound, or even kill, an elephant if you do not secure him P Then there is the hippo- potamus and the rhinoceros, the latter a specially formidable
creature; happily, he spends much of his energies in conflicts with his fellows. Lions appear not unfrequently in the story, while of various kinds of deer there was abundance. The giraffe appears once. But the book is full of good things.
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