HUNTING AND HUNTED IN BELGIAN CONGO 



tusker again, and had not the wind been unfavourable 

 we should have bagged something large. We did not 

 know that we were near elephants until within fifty 

 yards of them, when the rumbling sound so familiar to 

 the ear of the elephant hunter was heard ahead. Mounting 

 an ant heap we could obtain a view between the trees 

 of the herd grazing. We could see the branches being 

 drawn down by their great trunks; the majority of the 

 beasts were covered with a dull red earth, and presented 

 an extraordinary sight. Telling my three boys to go 

 back to the small glade through which we had just 

 passed, we took the gun-bearers and two Shinzis and 

 crept from tree to tree and bush to bush to within about 

 thirty yards of the herd. The nearest brute, a huge old 

 bull with thick tusks that were almost straight, stood 

 with ears flapping and trunk stretched out before him 

 skimming over the grass and roots beneath. Suddenly 

 he scented us, and with a shrill trumpeting gave the 



alarm. P and I had opened out some fifteen yards, 



and we stood, with gun-bearers behind us, sheltering 

 behind the bushes ; the Shinzis gave a simultaneous yell 

 and dashed away to the rear, and it was marvellous that 

 they escaped the charge that followed. I thought my 

 last moment had come, for as I dropped down on my 

 belly, the boy imitating my example, I saw the whole 

 herd advance and rush headlong at us. It was like 

 seeing a wall hurling itself down on one. Clouds of dust 

 shot up, the earth trembled, branches were crunched 

 up ; this was no earth tremor such as I had experienced 

 before, but a solid mass of maddened tossing life, great 

 carcases, with gleaming tusks that reached within a foot 

 of the ground, bore down upon us. I shut my eyes and 

 waited motionless ; every second I expected to be crushed 

 to a pulp as the frenzied brutes tore past within a few 

 feet in their rush for the cover of forest close by. It 

 lasted for some minutes, and through it all I lay flat on 



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