HUNTING THE ELEPHANT. 149 



Accompanied by his son Kermit, Edward Heller, R. J. Cunninghame and 

 Mr. Seloiis, he left Nairobi in the early days of August for Nyeri, with the 

 intention of getting a bull, cow or calf elephant for the National Museum. 



Although better elephants are obtainable in the Nile country of the 

 Uganda, and its immediate neighborhood. Colonel Roosevelt was anxious 

 to get an elephant in the Kenia district, so that Professor Heller, the taxi- 

 dermist, could have a better chance in the cooler climate there of saving the 

 skin in good condition for the Smithsonian Institution. 



Elephant hunting is no child's play, for in shooting the huge animals it 

 is necessary often to creep up to within some twenty feet of the herd, or even 

 nearer, and shoot the selected bull at a range of fifteen to thirty yards, and, 

 of course, if they get the wind or hear the hunter, the chances of his escape 

 are small. There is something fascinating about an elephant hunt, for the 

 chances are about even for the hunter and the hunted. Mr. Roosevelt fol- 

 lowed this plan and found it worked so well that towards the end of Novem- 

 ber he had already bagged nine elephants. 



The party were one day pursuing a lion into a jungle, Colonel Roosevelt 

 marching at the head, closely followed by Mr. Selous, while Kermit was 

 bringing up the rear, when they suddenly struck upon an elephant herd. 

 Stamping with their mighty feet, the gigantic animals had smashed some 

 young tree trunks and had shorn them of their twigs and branches, and with 

 their trunks and tusks had torn the bark of larger trees in long strips or 

 slices and consumed them. A big bull had just torn some long sword-shaped 

 hemp stalks out of the ground, and after chewing them dropped the fil>ers, 

 gleaming white, where they lay in the sun. The sap of this plant is food as 

 well as drink to them. At one point some of the elephants had gathered 

 together under an acacia tree and were breaking and devouring all its lower 

 branches and twigs. 



The ex-President instantly aimed at the head of the herd and would have 

 fired had not the old experienced F. C. Selous, the greatest of the world's 

 big game hunters, who has spent nearly forty years hunting in Africa, and 

 killed hundreds of elephants, warned him that to do so would be to challenge 

 the animals to a charge, which would mean sure death to the hunters. Not 

 without difficulty did he succeed in getting the ex-President and Kermit to 

 move back and climb a tree for safety. Hidden among the branches they 

 could see the elephants in the dense jungle. Roosevelt sent a whole load of 

 bullets into the largest bull, ran down from the tree and at a distance of about 

 forty feet finished the gigantic beast with a bullet through its heart. 



