With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



foot away, intent on flight, and most fortunately paying 

 us no attention. 



Count Thiele-Winckler tells me of an exactly similar 

 incident which occurred in India. 



Moments such as these are hard to realise in safety 

 and comfort here at home. Brief though they be, they 

 live ever afterwards in the memory, and have a charm 

 all their own. To appreciate their delight to the full a 

 man must be able to enter into the spirit of the sur- 

 roundings, and must be sensitive to the marvellous and 

 majestic scenery in which they are met with. But not 

 the most skilled of pens could succeed in bringing home 

 their magical fascination to the mind of the reader who 

 has not himself experienced anything of the kind. Even 

 the man who has gone through them can only recall them 

 in their details when his memory is at its best. 



I am apt to look at the elephants in the Zoological 

 Gardens very differently now, almost with a feeling of 

 awe and reverence, and I feel ashamed of the foolish 

 gapers who seek to exercise their wit at the expense of 

 the caged giant. How they would take to their heels 

 if they met him in the wilderness and he bore down 

 upon them ! 



Two days later, to my great surprise, both the bull 

 elephants had sought their favourite haunt again, but at 

 sunset they vanished just as heavy masses of clouds 

 began to come down over the wood, with a wonderfully 

 impressive effect. They went in the direction of a thick 

 girdle of trees. The wind was favourable. 



196 



