84 [ s10.99 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS less influenced by fly -bite. The universal pye-dog is of Portuguese origin .

At Api, a post in Lower Welle, wild elephants have during the last fifteen years been domesticated and trained for field labour with some success. There are now on the farm thirty -three tame elephants, most of them in regular work. Attempts at domesticating the zebra have been abandoned .

(6) Forestry The two main forest areas are (a) the north , from Lakes Albert and Edward and the Semliki river, westward to the Ubanghi river, and extending onward into the French Congo and Cameroon ; and (b) the south , on the upper Lomami , between the Lualaba and Sankuru rivers. These are the great virgin forests for which the Congo is famous, and which are equalled only in Liberia and Brazil. In addition along all the riverain regions of the Congo basin heavy forest exists, but of a more dense and tangled soft -wood type, with less timber. With the exception of the grass cattle regions already mentioned , the remainder of the Colony is bush-covered country, in which the prevailing vege tation is of a drier type, consisting chiefly of acacia bush, long grass and scrub , with scattered trees.

Timber .-Owing to the great timber forests being far inland, and railway communications with the Atlantic as yet almost non-existent, the timber of the Congo, which includes mahogany and many other valuable woods, has scarcely been touched for com mercial purposes. The natives yearly destroy large areas of the best of it to make room for their planta tions. In the Mayumbe region there are still small areas of virgin forest, and there only has exploita tion by the Europeans been possible. The annual destruction of the timber forests by the natives is