Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



and he collapsed never to rise again, having had 

 his spinal cord severed. 



His two friends looked round threateningly for 

 a moment, as if in seeming doubt whether to 

 make a brilliant charge in his defence, but, prob- 

 ably knowing instinctively that their pal was 

 dead, they decamped in chase of the trumpeting 

 mob in front, now fast disappearing in a cloud 

 of dust. 



A fine old bull this, and his tusks proved to be 

 98 lbs. and 93 lbs. apiece. 



What a day ! Two good elephants shot ; an 

 exciting episode that might have ended in a most 

 disastrous manner, but luckily didn't ; and some 

 odd experiences in their habits, particularly the 

 last phase in witnessing a wounded bull being 

 taken away supported by his two friends ; and 

 all this compressed into some eight hours ! 



This would afford endless chat over my camp 

 fire. But the first thing was to get back there. 

 It was far too late to dream of hacking out the 

 tusks of either animal that day, leave alone both ; 

 so, there being few, if any, natives about in that 

 part, we decided to leave our victims, each in 

 charge of a couple of spearmen, that night, return 

 next morning with plenty of people armed with 

 axes and country knives, and bring the four 

 tusks in together. If the neis^hbourhood is at all 

 populous this is a dangerous plan, because no 

 one knows the value of ivory better than the 



272 



