154 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
this offer. Coming from a Scotchman it was quite 
unexpected, but it was typical of Cuninghame’s 
generosity and indicative of his interest in scientific 
work. 
He taught me as much as one man can learn from 
another about the game of hunting elephants. There 
are some things which one can learn only through 
experience, and in elephant hunting most of the 
essentials must be learned in that way. It is easy and 
natural to assume that these huge beasts will always 
be too obvious for the unexpected to happen. But 
in spite of their size they are not always easy to see, 
for in their own country elephants are the colour of 
the shadows and on occasion quite as silent. In a 
forest or rock environment one may almost literally 
run on to an elephant before being aware of its pres- 
ence. The fact that Cuninghame spent so many 
years hunting the great game of Africa without ever 
being mauled is evidence of his skill. 
We went together to the Aberdare and killed one 
elephant—the single tusker now in the group in the 
Field Museum in Chicago. Then we went down to 
the government station at Fort Hall and got permis- 
sion to go up on Mt. Kenia for further elephant 
shooting. We spent six weeks on the slopes of the 
mountain, I as an amateur under Cuninghame’s 
tutelage. And he was a real elephant hunter. He 
had killed many elephants, and his long experience 
had given him a great deal of that knowledge about 
elephants which would enable him to kill them with- 
out himself being killed. On the other hand, Cun- 
