208 THE SEMLIKI VALLEY AND CONGO EOKEST 



thought to see them turn back, but with great ease they slid and 

 scrambled down the steep sides, rushing with shrill trumpetings to the 

 reed beds which marked the invisible watercourse. We shot two males 

 out of this great herd, having permission to do so from the Congo Free 

 State authorities. AVhen the first rifle shots rang out, it was a touching 

 sight to see the babv ele})hants run to their motliers (it was one of those 

 large mixed herds that one so often sees, with females and young accom- 

 panied by young full-grown males*), and the mother separate her front 

 legs as widely as possible to receive the little one under the protection 

 of her body, ceasing her fierce trumpetings every few minutes to caress 

 the frightened little one with her trunk. After the shots which laid low 

 these two young males, the frightened animals in their panic tore up and 

 down the gorge through the dense vegetation, not, however, attempting 

 to charge us, though at one time it seemed as though they would run 

 amuck through the camp. 



* These breeding males apjiear to be quite young (for elephants — say twenty to 

 thirty years old), with relatively small — fifty-pouiul — tusks. 



