398 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



and when they left the tree was still smoking. Throughout 

 the process the honey bird had stayed quietly in a neigh- 

 boring tree, occasionally uttering a single bubbling cluck. 

 As soon as the boys left, it flew straight for the smoking 

 bee-tree, uttering a long trill, utterly different from the 

 chattering noise made while trying to attract the attention 

 of the men and lead them to the tree; and not only did it 

 eat the grubs, but it also ate the bees that were stupefied 

 by the smoke. 



Next day we moved camp to the edge of a swamp about 

 five miles from the river. Near the tents was one of the 

 trees which, not knowing its real name, we called "sausage- 

 tree"; the seeds or fruits are encased in a kind of hard gourd, 

 the size of a giant sausage, which swings loosely at the end 

 of a long tendril. The swamp was half or three-quarters 

 of a mile across, with one or two ponds in the middle, from 

 which we shot ducks. Francolins delicious eating, as the 

 ducks were also uttered their grating calls near by; while 

 oribi and hartebeest were usually to be seen from the tents. 

 The hartebeest, by the way, in its three forms, is much the 

 commonest game animal of East Africa. 



A few miles beyond this swamp we suddenly came on a 

 small herd of elephants in the open. There were eight 

 cows and two calves, and they were moving slowly, feeding 

 on the thorny tops of the scattered mimosas, and of other 

 bushes which were thornless. The eyesight of elephants is 

 very bad; I doubt whether they see more clearly than a 

 rather near-sighted man; and we walked up to within 

 seventy yards of these, slight though the cover was, so that 

 Kermit could try to photograph them. We did not need to 

 kill another cow for the National Museum, and so after we 

 had looked at the huge, interesting creatures as long as we 

 wished, we croaked and whistled, and they moved off with 

 leisurely indifference. There is always a fascination about 

 watching elephants; they are such giants, they are so intel- 

 ligent much more so than any other game, except perhaps 

 the lion, whose intelligence has a very sinister bent and 



