258 ELEPHANT-HUNTING [ch. x 



Early in the afternoon some of the scouts returned 

 with news that three bull elephants were in a piece of 

 forest a couple of miles distant, and thither we went. 

 It was an open grove of heavy thorn timber beside a 

 strip of swamp ; among the trees the grass grew tall, and 

 there were many thickets of abutilon, a flowering shrub 

 a dozen feet high. On this the elephants were feeding. 

 Tarlton's favourite sport was lion-hunting, but he was 

 also a first-class elephant-hunter, and he brought me 

 up to these bulls in fine style. Although only three 

 hundred yards away, it took us two hours to get close 

 to them. Tarlton and the " shenzis " — wild natives, 

 called in Swahili (a kind of African chinook) •' wa- 

 shenzi " — who were with us climbed tree after tree, 

 first to place the elephants, and then to see if they 

 carried ivory heavy enough to warrant my shooting 

 them. At last Tarlton brouglit me to within fifty 

 yards of them. Two were feeding in bush which hid 

 them from view, and the third stood between, facing 

 us. We could only see the top of his head and back, 

 and not his tusks, and could not tell whether he was 

 worth shooting. Much puzzled, we stood where we 

 were, peering anxiously at the huge half-hidden game. 

 Suddenly there was a slight eddy in the wind, up went 

 the elepliant's trunk, twisting to and fro in the air ; 

 evidently he could not catcli a clear scent, but in 

 another moment we saw the tlu'ee great dark forms 

 moving gently off through the bush. As rapidly as 

 possible, following the trails already tramped by the 

 elephants, we walked forward, and after a hundred 

 yards Tarlton pointed to a big bull with good tusks 

 standing motionless behind some small trees seventy 

 yards distant. As I aimed at his head he started to 

 move oft". The first bullet from the heavy Holland 



