UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 385 



ing killed a man who had tried to interfere with them. 

 Kermit and I at once started after them, just as the last of 

 the safari came in, accompanied by Cuninghame, who 

 could not go with us as he was recovering from a bout of 

 fever. 



In half an hour we came on fresh sign, and began to 

 work cautiously along it. Our guide, a wild-looking savage 

 with a blunt spear, went first, followed by my gun-bearer, 

 Kongoni, who is excellent on spoor; then I came, followed 

 by Kermit, and by the other gun-bearers. The country was 

 covered with tall grass, and studded with numerous patches 

 of jungle and small forest. In a few minutes we heard 

 the elephants, four or five of them, feeding in thick jungle 

 where the vines that hung in tangled masses from the trees 

 and that draped the bushes made dark caves of greenery. 

 It was difficult to find any space clear enough to see thirty 

 yards ahead. Fortunately there was no wind whatever. We 

 picked out the spoor of a big bull and for an hour and a half 

 we followed it, Kongoni usually in the lead. Two or three 

 times, as we threaded our way among the bushes, as noise- 

 lessly as possible, we caught glimpses of gray, shadowy bulks, 

 but only for a second at a time, and never with sufficient dis- 

 tinctness to shoot. The elephants were feeding, tearing 

 down the branches of a rather large-leafed tree with bark 

 like that of a scrub oak and big pods containing beans; 

 evidently these beans were a favorite food. They fed in 

 circles and zigzags, but toward camp, until they were not 

 much more than half a mile from it, and the noise made by 

 the porters in talking and gathering wood was plainly 

 audible; but the elephants paid no heed to it, being evi- 

 dently too much accustomed to the natives to have much 



