264 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



cow, and her ivory was rather better than in the average 

 of her sex in this neighborhood, the tusks weighing about 

 eighteen pounds apiece. She had been ravaging the sham- 

 bas over night which accounted in part for the natives 

 being so eager to show her to me and in addition to leaves 

 and grass, her stomach contained quantities of beans. 

 There was a young one just out of calfhood, and quite 

 able to take care of itself with her; it ran off as soon as the 

 mother fell. 



Early next morning Cuninghame and Heller shifted 

 part of the safari to the stream near where the dead ele- 

 phant lay, intending to spend the following three days in 

 taking off and preparing the skin. Meanwhile Tarlton, 

 Kermit, and I were to try our luck in a short hunt on the 

 other side of Meru boma, at a little crater lake called Lake 

 Ingouga. We could not get an early start, and reached 

 Meru too late to push on to the lake the same day. 



The following morning we marched to the lake in two 

 hours and a half. We spent an hour in crossing a broad 

 tongue of woodland that stretched down from the wonder- 

 ful mountain forest lying higher on the slopes. The trail 

 was blind in many places because elephant paths of every 

 age continually led along and across it, some of them being 

 much better marked than the trail itself, as it twisted though 

 the sun-flecked shadows underneath the great trees. Then 

 we came out on high downs, covered with tall grass and 

 littered with volcanic stones; and broken by ravines which 

 were choked with dense underbrush. There were high 

 hills, and to the left of the downs, toward Kenia, these 

 were clad in forest. We pitched our tents on a steep cliff 

 overlooking the crater lake or pond, as it might more 



