ELEPHANT 205 
Both leaders had fallen, and those elephant stood with- 
out moving ten yards for, I should say, a quarter of an hour, 
while we profoundly wished they would take their leave and 
let us crawl away. I tried once more to get near enough 
to take a good photograph, while H. came alongside cover-. 
ing me with his rifle, but before I got within fifty yards 
the cows screamed so, and so evidently were ready to charge 
in a body that I had to content myself with, I fear, an 
unsatisfactory “‘snap.” 
At last they began to move — very slowly indeed — and 
as they went one way we gladly crawled the other. Three 
bulls down, two of them moving more than twenty yards 
after the shot — we had been fortunate indeed and we knew 
it. In an hour or two the herds had moved about two 
miles away. Some were feeding, others settling down into 
the long line formation that means travelling — were 
beginning what was doubtless to be a steady march across 
country, to the blue escarpment on the east. 
We camped the sefari and had our tea. I never enjoyed 
it more. Some of the elephants only travelled for a few 
hours after our attack on them, and then headed back to. 
an extensive patch of thorny country not more than five 
miles from our camp. It was easy to keep in touch with 
them by means of our N’dorobo. They remained feeding 
on the mimosa shoots for another couple of days, before 
leaving for the nearest forest land to the eastward. 
The last evening we were camped to the northeast of 
Elgon, one of our wild men came in saying that a herd 
was making its way campward. We started off imme- 
diately, and John, my tent boy, who in all his far wander-- 
ings had never seen an elephant, begged to be allowed to. 
come along. It was one of those evenings one loves to 
remember. The heat of the day was over, and a steady 
soft breeze, fragrant from its passage over wide stretches: 
of blossoming mimosa thorn, on which prickly delicacies. 
