ELEPHANTS DRINKING 'AT A POOL. 165 



processions of tame elephants in India, must have noticed 

 how absolutely noiseless are their footsteps, on the hard 

 and sun-dried plain. The same thing is noticeable 

 even in a greater degree, if possible, as regards the 

 camel's tread, which on almost all kinds of ground rarely 

 produces a sound. 



Mr. Gordon Gumming, the African hunter, gives a 

 most striking example of the silent way in which a 

 whole herd of elephants came up to a bush forest water- 

 hole, where the great hunter was watching by night 

 for the arrival of game. 



"I had lain," he says, "about two hours presently they 

 {the elephants) walked up to the water, and commenced 

 drinking within 50 yards of me. They approached with so 

 quiet a step that I fancied it was the footsteps of jackals 

 which I heard; and I was not aware of their presence until 

 I heard the water which they had drawn up with their trunks, 

 dropping into the fountain. I then peered from my screen, 

 with a beating heart, and beheld two enormous bull elephants 

 which looked like two great castles, standing before me." ' 



The splendid scenes of wild animal life, which from 

 a hunter's point of view were to be witnessed within 

 the memory of living sportsmen, in many parts of the 

 world, on these and similar occasions, have been more 

 fully described in our chapter on " Great Herds of 

 Game ; " we must however make room for a sketch of 

 another of these spectacles occurring at a forest drink- 

 ing pool in Ceylon, about the year 1847, left us by the 

 pen of that ready writer and accomplished hunter the 

 late Sir Samuel Baker. 



This pool, situated not far from the ancient ruined 



* Five Years of a fainter* s Life in the Far Interior of Sorith Africa, 

 by Roualeyn Gordon dimming, of Altyre, 2nd Edit., 1850, Vol. i, pp. 

 3089. 



