CH. xii] AX ELEPHANT CHARGE 343 



advanced towards wliere the noise indicated that the 

 herd were standin<^. 



In a couple of minutes we sighted them. It was just 

 noon. There were six cows and two well-grown calves 

 — these last being quite big enough to shift for them- 

 selves or to be awkward antagonists for any man of 

 whom they could get hold. They stood in a clump, 

 each occasionally shifting its position or lazily flapping 

 an ear ; and now and then one would break off a branch 

 with its trunk, tuck it into its mouth, and withdraw it 

 stripped of its leaves. The wind blew fair, we were 

 careful to make no noise, and with ordinary caution we 

 had nothing to fear from their eyesight. The ground 

 was neither forest nor bare plain ; it was covered with 

 long grass and a scattered open growth of small scantily 

 leaved trees, chiefly mimosas, but including some trees 

 covered with gorgeous orange-red flowers. After 

 careful scrutiny we advanced behind an ant-hill to 

 within sixty yards, and I stepped forward for the shot. 



Akeley wanted two cows and a calf. Of the two best 

 cows one had ratlier thick, worn tusks ; those of the 

 other were smaller, but better shaped. The latter stood 

 half facing me, and I put the bullet from the right 

 barrel of the Holland through her lungs, and fired the 

 left barrel for the heart of the other. Tarlton, and then 

 Akeley and Kermit, followed suit. At once the herd 

 started diagonally past us, but half halted and faced 

 toward us when only twenty-five yards distant, an un- 

 wounded cow beginning to advance with her great ears 

 cocked at right angles to her head ; and Tarlton called, 

 " Look out ; they are coming for us." At such a 

 distance a charge from half a dozen elephants is a 

 serious thing. I put a bullet into the foreliead of the 

 advancing cow, causing her to lurch heavily forward to 



