ELEPHANT HUNTING 



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Once in the jungle, we trod as quietly as possible, thread- 

 ing our way along the elephant trails, which crossed and 

 recrossed one another. Evidently it was a favorite haunt, 

 for the sign was abundant, both old and new. In the im- 

 penetrable cover it was quite impossible to tell just where 

 the elephants were, and twice we sent one of the savages up 



Trunk of giant fig-tree in Kenia forest 

 From a photograph by Edmund Heller 



a tree to locate the game. The last time the watcher, who 

 stayed in the tree, indicated by signs that the elephant were 

 not far off; and his companions wished to lead us round 

 to where the cover was a little lower and thinner. But 

 to do so would have given them our wind, and Cuninghame 

 refused, taking into his own hands the management of the 

 stalk. I kept my heavy rifle at the ready, and on we went, 

 in watchful silence, prepared at any moment for a charge. 

 We could not tell at what second we might catch our first 

 glimpse at very close quarters of "the beast that hath 

 between his eyes the serpent for a hand," and when thus 

 surprised the temper of "the huge earth-shaking beast" 

 is sometimes of the shortest. 



