THE ELEPHANT, THE GIANT OF THE FOREST 



forest, or high up in the mountain, he makes nightly trips 

 down to the plains. 



The favorite haunts of the elephant in British East 

 Africa to-day are either among the foothills or higher 

 slopes of the before-named mountains, where the bamboo 

 often grows in mighty forests, intermingled with large, 

 deciduous trees, and occasionally cedars. I have myself 

 found elephant tracks on Mt. Kenia at elevations of over 

 10,000 feet, far above the timber and bamboo line; and I 

 have no doubt that natives tell the truth when they say 

 they have known wounded elephants to go almost up to 

 the very snow line, which here, under the equator, starts 

 first at an altitude of some 15,000 feet. 



Nothing in the way of big-game shooting can be com- 

 pared with elephant hunting for the danger, excitement, 

 and amount of real sport. No other hunting taxes to such 

 an extent the best qualities of the sportsman. He has to 

 use the greatest amount of precaution, judgment, strength, 

 endurance, nerve and personal courage, strategy, and skill, 

 if he desires to bring a fine trophy to bag, without wanting 

 to bang indiscriminately at the first best elephant he sees 

 hundreds of yards off without regard to its size or sex, 

 as, alas ! so many " sportsmen " do to-day. Two Russian 

 noblemen whom I met in East Africa told me without 

 hesitancy that they were going to take out licenses enough 

 to kill three elephants each, this being possible under the 

 old game laws in force until December, 1909, and that they 

 would fire at the first elephant they saw, whether big or 

 small, whether male or female, and that even if the tusks 

 would be afterwards confiscated by the government for 

 weighing less than sixty pounds together, they would sim- 



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