THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



after dinner Colonel Roosevelt, Mr. Selous, a few other 

 fellow passengers and myself used to spend some time in 

 telling our experiences as hunters in different parts of the 

 world, and it was during these evening hours that we had 

 the privilege of listening to the wonderful experiences of 

 Mr. Selous, without a question the most successful lion 

 and elephant hunter alive. Another of Mr. Selous's 

 stories, of the truth of which we were all persuaded, ran 

 about as follows: 



" One evening shortly before he returned to his camp 

 he saw a good-sized ' tusker,' at which he fired. With a 

 crash the elephant went down, and was lying motionless 

 on the ground, when Mr. Selous arrived on the spot. Be- 

 ing very much tired out, he sat down on the side of the 

 elephant to take a much-needed rest, after which he decided 

 to go home to camp for the night, it being too late to 

 cut out the tusks that evening. Before leaving the fallen 

 monarch, he cut off his tail to have something to show 

 when he would arrive in camp. The next morning he sent 

 some of his natives back to chop out the tusks, while he 

 was going out in a different direction to look for other 

 elephants. 



*' Returning in the afternoon to camp, he was very 

 much surprised and disgusted not to find the tusks of 

 his elephant. He became still more surprised when the 

 men told him that they had been at the spot where the 

 elephant fell, but had failed to find any trace of him. Of 

 course, Mr. Selous, therefore, at once started for the place 

 and found, to his utter amazement, that the huge beast, 

 which he had believed dead, and on which he had rested 

 the evening before, had not been killed after all, but was 



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