THE ELEPHANT, THE GIANT OF THE FOREST 



still roaming around somewhere in the vicinity, now minus 

 his tail." 



This and another incident which I will relate in the 

 chapter on Antelopes, go to show how necessary it is to 

 put an extra shot into the head of any big and dangerous 

 beast that has been apparently killed, for there have been 

 a good many instances where ferocious animals have only 

 been stunned for the moment by the bullet just grazing 

 the spine, and then been able to get up again and kill 

 their assailants unawares, when suddenly awakened to 

 consciousness. 



It is most interesting to watch a herd of elephants feed, 

 play, or rest when they are undisturbed. The larger ones 

 often help the '' babies " by breaking down branches or 

 whole trees to make it more easy for them to feed. On 

 Kenia I once found that a perfectly sound tree, measuring 

 thirty-three and a half inches in circumference, had been 

 broken off by an elephant, about seven feet from the 

 ground! This shows that a man has to climb a good- 

 sized tree if he wants to be safe from elephants, whose 

 destructiveness is appalling. Very often a few of these 

 beasts may, for instance, in a single night spoil a whole 

 plantation of sugar cane, of a dozen or more acres, tramp- 

 ling down what they do not devour. Elephants have often 

 even broken down native huts and killed their inhabitants 

 in an effort to get at sugar cane and other coveted " deli- 

 cacies," when they had suspected the presence of such in 

 the huts. 



The wild Wandorobbo and other native hunters kill 

 elephants in different ways. Sometimes they make big 

 pits with or without sharp poles, stuck into the bottom, 



71 



