THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 291 



mediately to cover the dead stalks, the shadows, the 

 very light itself striking through the feathery tops. 

 There is here no active animal or bird life; and there- 

 fore it is extraordinarily quiet. No sharp sound breaks 

 the stillness; only are heard the hushed rustling of the 

 slender bamboo leaves far above and the muffled drip- 

 ping of the rain. A mysterious, cool, green, quiet 

 place, like the bottom of the sea. 



In the bamboos one can never see over ten yards, 

 and rarely that. They offer no barrier whatever to an 

 elephant. If one should come upon him at the wrong 

 end, so to speak, he would have to back out and go 

 around. These considerations made us rejoice when 

 our elephant's spoor led us down again and into the 

 forest. 



All this, while interesting, was hard, hard work for 

 everybody. It now came on to rain harder than ever; 

 in fact the torrent roared down on us so copiously that 

 we could not face it and had to get beneath the slanting 

 trunks of trees until it had eased up a bit. Here we 

 made shift to eat a few potio cakes, peanuts, and choco- 

 late. After a bit we went on. 



About one o'clock suddenly we heard him trumpet. 

 The sound was very loud, and like a rather shrill loco- 

 motive whistle. We went on cautiously. The trail 

 led us down the middle of a stream for some distance, 

 so we had to wade nearly up to our waists; but we were 

 already well soaked, so we did not much mind. The 



