ELEPHANT 201 
The shrill, carrying, but far from unmusical sound 
was borne to us on the cool morning breeze from a distance 
of quite a mile, and, strange to say, whether it was that 
they recognized the note, or sniffed the wind tainted with the 
smell they fear, our mules resolutely refused to be led or 
driven one foot nearer. So we left them there, and went 
forward on foot. 
Crowning the next swell of ridge, standing sleepily under 
the shady trees, we saw some twenty great black backs ris- 
ing above the yellow grass, and outlined against the sky. 
Somehow, as they solemnly and slowly moved forward, for 
they didn’t stand still for long, ploughing their way through 
the rank grass, yellow as ripe wheat, they reminded me of 
nothing so much as the big black whales I had rowed up to, 
on the lower St. Lawrence. ‘The herd — we now saw they 
numbered about thirty — moved out of all cover into the 
wide prairie. But they were far from suspecting any dan- 
ger, and had evidently no idea of travelling. They amused 
themselves by tearing great wisps of the grass and throwing 
them over their own and their friends’: shoulders, and 
spouting red dusty showers on each other. The finely 
curving trunks often touched, and were slowly carried from 
side to side, or round the little black totos that, almost 
invisible, in the tall grass, moved along by their mothers’ 
sides. 
As I mounted the ridge the elephants had slowly left, 
a wonderful prospect opened before me. On my left hand, 
deep purple masses of virgin forest sloped down from 
mighty Elgon to the wide yellow plain, now clothed with 
golden waving grass six feet high. Before me for mile 
after mile those grass lands spread, bounded only on my 
right hand by the other great woodlands that fell down- 
ward from the mountain range to the east. Here at last 
was the home of the elephant, and as I stood on its threshold 
that glorious October morning, down from their inviolable 
