ELEPHANT HUNTING 295 



foliage. It was a riot of twisted vines, interlacing the trees 

 and bushes. Only the elephant paths, which, of every age, 

 crossed and recrossed it hither and thither, made it pas- 

 sable. One of the chief difficulties in hunting elephants in 

 the forest is that it is impossible to travel, except very slowly 

 and with much noise, off these trails, so that it is some- 

 times very difficult to take advantage of the wind; and 

 although the sight of the elephant is dull, both its sense of 

 hearing and its sense of smell are exceedingly acute. 



Hour after hour we worked our way onward through 

 tangled forest and matted jungle. There was little sign 

 of bird or animal life. A troop of long-haired black-and- 

 white monkeys bounded away among the tree tops. Here 

 and there brilliant flowers lightened the gloom. We ducked 

 under vines and climbed over fallen timber. Poisonous 

 nettles stung our hands. We were drenched by the wet 

 boughs which we brushed aside. Mosses and ferns grew 

 rank and close. The trees were of strange kinds. There 

 were huge trees with little leaves, and small trees with 

 big leaves. There were trees with bare, fleshy limbs, that 

 writhed out through the neighboring branches, bearing 

 sparse clusters of large frondage. In places the forest 

 was low, the trees thirty or forty feet high, the bushes that 

 choked the ground between, fifteen or twenty feet high. In 

 other places mighty monarchs of the wood, straight and 

 tall, towered aloft to an immense height; among them were 

 trees whose smooth, round boles were spotted like syca- 

 mores, while far above our heads their gracefully spreading 

 branches were hung with vines like mistletoe and draped 

 with Spanish moss; trees whose surfaces were corrugated 

 and knotted as if they were made of bundles of great 

 creepers; and giants whose buttressed trunks were four 

 times a man's length across. 



Twice we got on elephant spoor, once of a single bull, 

 once of a party of three. Then Cuninghame and the 

 'Ndorobo redoubled their caution. They would minutely 

 examine the fresh dung; and above all they continually 



