74 AFRICAN ADVENTURE STORIES 



over the rocky ridges and the steep sides of ra- 

 vines, and it was really remarkable what rough 

 country they sometimes inhabited. I was once 

 searching about a steep, rocky, timber-covered 

 pinnacle at the lower edge of the heather belt on 

 Mount Kenia for a good place to set my mouse- 

 traps. In scrambling through the moss-covered 

 boulders I found many elephant tracks and 

 after some difficulty reached the summit to dis- 

 cover that a herd of elephants had preceded me. 

 Elephants can climb up the side of a mountain 

 so steep that the hunter, even by using the 

 shrubbery to aid him, has difficulty in following. 

 Way up in the heather belt, at an altitude of 

 twelve thousand feet, where in October half an 

 inch of ice formed in buckets of water standing 

 outside the tent at night, we found elephant 

 tracks common. In crossing the bogs of which 

 there were many the elephants usually sepa- 

 rated and came together again as soon as they 

 struck solid ground. Their feet left holes in the 

 muck from one to two feet deep. These holes 

 were full of water and grass had grown over 

 them; so we were constantly stumbling into 

 them, and the water spurted into our faces as we 

 fell forward and wallowed on all fours. I never 



