228 JIN ABU FINDS 



thick mud, which appeared to grow deeper and 

 more yielding as we advanced. Nowhere were 

 delicate or beautiful ferns— coarseness on all sides. 

 Our common fern which grows to one and a half 

 feet in height, here I saw attaining to six feet, 

 with a stem over one inch thick. Now and again 

 we came upon thickets of bamboo and cane torn 

 up and broken down and scattered by the ele- 

 phants, that are prone in sheer wantonness to ex- 

 tensive destruction of this kind. Even when not 

 seeking the tender shoots at the bamboo tree-tops, 

 they will rip them up or ride them down, appar- 

 ently for pure joy of tearing things. I have seen 

 clumps of bamboo, having individual trees two to 

 four inches in diameter, pulled to pieces, and 

 broken and hurled all over the place, as though 

 they had been straws. 



After hours of wilderness tracking such as this, 

 the apparently impossible happened, and the un- 

 dergrowth got denser and so difficult to get 

 through that knives were in frequent use to cut a 

 path. Darkness overtook us with elephant tracks 

 in view, but without sight or sound of the ele- 

 phants. There was a disposition in my party to 

 turn back, but I insisted on camping on the tracks ; 

 so camp we did. 



In the night I was startled from sleep by a 

 crashing in the nearby jungle, which sounded as 



