52 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
into my lungs, and these internal injuries took a long 
time to heal. As a matter of fact, I don’t suppose I 
would have pulled through even with Mrs. Akeley’s 
care if it hadn’t been for a Scotch medical missionary 
who nearly ran himself to death coming to my rescue. 
He had been in the country only a little while and 
perhaps this explains his coming so fast when news 
reached him of a man who had been mauled by an 
elephant. The chief medical officer at Fort Hall, 
knowing better what elephant mauling usually meant, 
came, but he didn’t hurry. I saw him later and he 
apologized, but I felt no grievance. J understood the 
situation. Usually when an elephant gets a man a 
doctor can’t do anything for him. 
But this isn’t always so. Some months later I sat 
down in the hotel at Nairobi with three other men, 
who like myself had been caught by elephants and 
had lived to tell the tale. An elephant caught Black 
in his trunk, and threw him into a bush that broke 
his fall. The elephant followed him and stepped on 
him, the bush this time forming a cushion that saved 
him, and although the elephant returned two or three 
times to give him a final punch, he was not killed. 
However, he was badly broken up. 
Outram and a companion approached an elephant 
that was shot and down, when the animal suddenly 
rose, grabbed Outram in his trunk and threw him. 
The elephant followed him, but Outram scrambled 
into the grass while the elephant trampled his pith 
helmet into the ground, whereupon Outram got right 
under the elephant’s tail and stuck to this position 
