15. ELEPHANT AND MOUSE 



The Hunt 



MAJI MOTO CAMP, December 26, 1935. [Extract from 

 Mrs. Crile's diary.] 1 "We had planned to go to Ngaruka 

 today for python, but last night the native boys came in 

 with the news that they had seen fresh elephant spoor. A 

 heavy rain the night before washed out all spoor; so this 

 meant that in the late evening a herd of elephants had 

 crossed the trail leading to our camp and were going north 

 into the forest along the Rift wall. 



"Long before dawn they started the Chief (my hus- 

 band) and Captain Hewlett, with three trackers. Dr. 

 Quiring, Mr. Fuller, and I had finished breakfast and were 

 at work in the laboratory when the native boys returned, 

 much excited. The word was 'a Tembo' and that the 

 * Cutting Doctor 5 got it. After a few scurried moments, we 

 were off for a four-mile drive along the shore of the lake. On 

 the very outskirt of the forest we found the trackers waiting. 



"Slowly, in single file, every other man with a big gun, 

 we followed the sandy game trails through the thick thorn, 

 in and around the large clumps of bush, around huge 

 trees, the great gnarled branches of which reached at least 75 

 feet in each direction, over giant logs, with birds screaming 

 overhead, baboons chattering, buffalo tracks everywhere, 

 until finally a snort and a scuffle warned us that it was 

 rhino country, too. ... 



"Just behind us rose the escarpment covered with thick 

 forest; just at our feet was a deep karonga, the sandy bed 

 of which was now dry. We scrambled down its precipitous 

 bank and over a few loose rocks, then mounted a turn, and 

 there, right in the middle of this sandy river bed, like a 

 giant basaltic bowlder, rose the black mass of the elephant. 



1 CRILE, GRACE, "Skyways to a Jungle Laboratory," W. W. Norton & Com- 

 pany, Inc., New York, 1936. 



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