A HERD OF ELEPHANTS 



get within some fifty or sixty yards without disturbing 

 her wild relatives. But the latter were still keenly alert, 

 and it would have been certain death to try and get 

 near enough to use the moving picture machine. The 

 mere turning of the handle would have brought them 

 charging down on us. We decided, most reluctantly, to 

 leave the two bulls alone, and continued on our course 

 until lunch-time, when we halted in a rocky river-bed. 

 There we found fresh spoor of a herd of at least fifty 

 elephant. They must have passed but a very little while 

 before. There were trees covered with the still wet mud 

 which the animals had scraped off themselves. A little 

 farther on we could see where they had been playing 

 about, tearing down great branches in sport, and 

 churning up the soaking ground underfoot. But 

 luck was against us that day, and I returned at last 

 to camp without a single elephant negative. 



On another occasion I suggested getting our tame 

 elephant right in amongst a herd of wild ones which 

 we had located, but my companion, the game-ranger, 

 shook his head. He would not be in that act, he 

 declared. Only a month before a Government elephant 

 had got amongst the jungle elephants and had been 

 promptly charged and killed. 



So far as general photographs of jungle life were 

 concerned the trip was a success. I secured numbers 

 of most interesting pictures, but at the end of twenty 

 days of increasing endeavour I seemed as far as ever 



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