UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 451 



at hand. We found him after ten minutes' walk; a young 

 bull, with very small tusks, not worth shooting. For three- 

 quarters of an hour we watched him, strolling about and 

 feeding, just on the edge of a wall of high elephant grass. 

 Although we were in plain sight, ninety yards off, and 

 sometimes moved about, he never saw us; for an elephant's 

 eyes are very bad. He was feeding on some thick, luscious 

 grass, in the usual leisurely elephant fashion, plucking a 

 big tuft, waving it nonchalantly about in his trunk, and 

 finally tucking it into his mouth; pausing to rub his side 

 against a tree, or to sway to and fro as he stood; and con- 

 tinually waving his tail and half cocking his ears. 



At noon on January 5th, 1910, we reached Butiaba, a 

 sandspit and marsh on the shores of Lake Albert Nyanza. 

 We had marched about one hundred and sixty miles from 

 Lake Victoria. W T e camped on the sandy beach by the 

 edge of the beautiful lake, looking across its waters to the 

 mountains that walled in the opposite shore. At mid-day 

 the whole landscape trembled in the white, glaring heat; 

 as the afternoon waned a wind blew off the lake, and the 

 west kindled in ruddy splendor as the sun went down. 



At Butiaba we took boats to go down the Nile to the 

 Lado country. The head of the water transportation ser- 

 vice in Uganda, Captain Hutchinson, R.N.R., met us, 

 having most kindly decided to take charge of our flotilla 

 himself. Captain Hutchinson was a mighty hunter, and 

 had met with one most extraordinary experience while 

 elephant hunting; in Uganda the number of hunters who 

 have been killed or injured by elephants and buffaloes is 

 large. He wounded a big bull in the head, and followed 

 it for three days. The wound was serious and on the 

 fourth day he overtook the elephant. It charged as soon 

 as it saw him. He hit it twice in the head with his .450 

 double-barrel as it came on, but neither stopped nor turned 

 it; his second rifle, a double 8 bore, failed to act; and the 

 elephant seized him in its trunk. It brandished him to and 

 fro in the air several times, and then planting him on the 



