Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



back. It was all done in good part. One's 

 attendants get so excited at the mere thought of 

 an elephant that they are apt to take charge of 

 the whole show and jabber away at one another 

 in whispers as if one wasn't there. Never mind ! 

 There are not many flies on them ! Now it was 

 a case of " needs must when the devil drives," 

 and I got in the most awful funk at being shoved 

 and pulled pell-mell into the middle of the whole 

 push. I clamoured for a rifle — my Mannlicher — 

 and they gracefully allowed me that, but they 

 didn't care a twopenny curse for anything else. 

 And then that veering wind! It was a sort of 

 Balaclava ! Cows to the right of us, cows to the 

 left of us, and the big 'un in front ! And they 

 were volleying and thundering, i.e. making the 

 rumblinsf noise that denotes contentment and 

 happiness— talking to the little ones, so the 

 natives say. 



I had got half-way across the fateful zone, ably 

 backed up by the orderly with the heavy rifle — 

 all the time wondering what would happen if a 

 single elephant got our wind and perceived us, 

 as, let me emphasize the fact, we were bang in 

 the middle of a straggling herd — when the worst 

 happened, and a beastly young bull, who was 

 thinkino; when he shouldn't, took it into his head 

 to charge my drink-box from my left rear. This 

 was more than I could stand, and I had to take 

 my eyes off the monster in front, now some fifty 



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