^ After Elephants with Wandorobo 



sportsman has when after a Brunft stag — he cares for 

 no other kind of game ; he has no mind for anything 

 but the stag. But the elephant fever attacks you out 

 in Africa even more virulently than the stag fever here 

 at home. 



Yet it is fine to remember one's ordinary shooting 

 expeditions in the tropics. You need some luck, of course 

 — the velt is illimitable and the game scattered all over 

 it. But if the rains have just ceased, if you have 

 secured good guides, if you yourself are equal to facing all 

 the hardships, then indeed it is a wonderful experience. 

 There is no doubt about it — you have to be ready for a 

 combination of every kind of strain and exertion. You can 

 stand it for a day perhaps, or two or three, but you must 

 then take a rest. The man who has gone through with 

 this may venture on the experiment of pursuing elephants 

 for several days together. He will, I think, bear me out 

 in saying that until you have done that also you do not 

 know the limits of endurance and fatigue. 



The most glorious hour in the African sportsman's life 

 is that in which he bags a bull-elephant. When he 

 succeeds in bringing the animal down at close range in a 

 thicket such as I have so often described, his heart beats 

 with delight — it is just a chance in such cases what your 

 fate may be. Wide as are the differences in the views 

 taken by experienced travellers and by other writers in 

 regard to African sport in general, they are all agreed 

 that elephant-hunting is the most dangerous task a man 

 can set himself The hunting of Indian or Ceylon 

 elephants — save in the case of a "rogue" — is not to be 



417 





