32 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
it is hard to tell the direction of the wind. I used to 
light wax taper matches as tests, for they could be 
struck without any noise and the flame would show 
the direction of the slightest breath of air. 
In many other ways besides its smelling ability the 
elephant’s trunk is the most extraordinary part of 
this most extraordinary animal. A man’s arm has a 
more or less universal joint at the shoulder. The 
elephant’s trunk is absolutely flexible at every point. 
It can turn in any direction and in whatever position 
it is, and has tremendous strength. There is no bone 
in it, of course, but it is constructed of interwoven 
muscle and sinew so tough that one can hardly cut 
it with a knife. An elephant can shoot a stream of 
water out of it that would put out a fire; lift a tree 
trunk weighing a ton and throw it easily; or it is 
delicate enough to pull a blade of grass with. He 
drinks with it, feeds himself with it, smells with it, 
works with it, and at times fights withit. Incidentally, 
a mouse that endeavoured to frighten an elephant 
by the traditional nursery rhyme method of running 
up his trunk would be blown into the next county. 
There is nothing else like an elephant’s trunk on earth. 
And for that matter, there is nothing else like the 
elephant. He has come down to us through the ages, 
surviving the conditions which killed off his earlier 
contemporaries, and he now adapts himself perfectly 
to more different conditions than any other animal 
in Africa. 
He can eat anything that is green or ever has been 
green, just so long as there is enough of it. He can 
