ELEPHANT FRIENDS AND FOES — 23 
I got up in the morning and had breakfast before 
daybreak. The elephants had moved on down the 
edge of the forest. What had been a jungle of high 
grass and bush the day before was trampled flat. 
There were at least seven hundred elephants in the 
herd—government officials had counted them on the 
previous day as they came down. I followed the 
trails to the edge of the forest but saw none. I started 
back to cross a little zu//ah (a dry water course), but 
felt suspicious and decided to look the situation over 
a little more closely. I ran up on a sloping rock and, 
almost under me on the other side, I saw the back of 
a large elephant. Over to one side there was another 
one, beyond that another, and then I realized that 
the little zu//ah through which I had planned to pass 
was very well sprinkled with them. I backed off and 
went up to a higher rock to one side. Elephants 
were drifting into the forest from all directions. The 
sun was just coming up over the hills and was shining 
upon the forest, which sparkled in the sunlight— 
morning greetings to the forest people. The monkeys 
greeted one another with barks and coughs. Every- 
thing was waking up—it was a busy day. There 
was not a breath of air. I had gone back a million 
years; the birds were calling back and forth, the 
monkeys were calling to one another, a troop of 
chimpanzees in the open screamed, and their shouts 
were answered from another group inside the forest. 
All the forest life was awake and moving about as 
that huge herd of elephants, singly and in groups, 
flowed into the forest from the plain. There was one 
