64 AFRICAN ADVENTURE STORIES 



from our faces, and climbing over logs. Wher- 

 ever a tree of not too great size obstructed the 

 way they had put their heads against it and 

 pushed it over, tearing up the roots on all sides. 



While travelling they had reached up with 

 their trunks and broken off great limbs and 

 eaten the branches. We found that in some 

 instances they had carried or dragged the limbs 

 several hundred yards without eating them, 

 which gave the impression that it was done in a 

 spirit of playfulness. Again they had dug about 

 the roots of a tree with their tusks and then 

 pushed it over or pulled it down with their 

 trunks. And so all through the forests we found 

 trees that had been shoved down for one reason 

 or another, limbs lying here and there on the 

 ground, and roots that had been dug up to eat. 



In one place where a large herd of elephants 

 had passed through an acacia grove to water at 

 the Nile the uprooted and torn-down trees ap- 

 peared as though a cyclone had swept over them. 

 The acacia tree is a species of thorn-tree with 

 spines three and four inches long. The thorns 

 produce a poisonous effect on the flesh, which 

 lasts for several days, yet the elephants fed ex- 

 tensively on them, thorns and all. 



