THE WAYS OF THE ELEPHANT 63 



In British East Africa we found elephants in- 

 habiting the jungle country about the base of 

 the mountain ranges and isolated mountains and 

 on the mountains themselves to an altitude of 

 over twelve thousand feet. Up to that level, 

 on Mount Kenia, their tracks were common. 

 In the lowlands of Uganda and the Congo they 

 frequented the immense tracts of elephant-grass 

 that grew to a height of ten feet, the small 

 strips of jungle along the rivers, and the open 

 thorn-tree groves, where they seemed to feed 

 extensively. 



In the thickly wooded countries the elephants 

 had travelled single file and had stepped in each 

 other's footprints. Sometimes deep holes had 

 been worn in the earth, and there were stretches 

 where these holes were full of water; so in fol- 

 lowing them we had to step over the puddles 

 from ridge to ridge. As the stride of an elephant 

 is much longer than that of a man, we found 

 travelling at times leg-stretching work. 



While the trails themselves were wide and 

 well worn, strange to say the great brutes had 

 simply forced their way through the tangle 

 which closed in behind them, so we were kept 

 busy ducking under limbs, pushing brush away 



