THE FOREST. 173 



seen elephant roads at thirteen thousand feet above sea level, but it is probable 

 that they ascend to greater altitudes than this. 



When you have found some sort of a path by which to enter the forest, you 

 should next examine carefully the ground in its immediate neighbourhood, and, if 

 possible, any streams near at hand running through the forest. After careful 

 examination of many such pathways and the streams close by them, you may find 

 one with enough spoor about it to warrant your making that section of forest your 

 hunting-ground. If you are able to get some of the native hunters of the forest 

 to join you, so much the better, as they will be able to lead you straight to a 

 good locality. 



Having selected your proposed hunting-ground, you must take every precaution 

 not to alarm the game, for if once you are known to be in the neighbourhood, all the 

 wary forest animals will clear straight out of the district. So you should camp outside 

 the forest if your hunting-ground is near the edge, or, at any rate, you should take 

 care to be some way back from wherever you intend to hunt. 



Your site being chosen, the next thing to do is to find the lie of any streams 

 in the forest near your hunting-ground. You start in the morning from camp and 

 roam about looking for fresh spoor. If you cannot find any the first day, you try to 

 locate the streams and any drin king-places so as to visit them on the morrow. By 

 "visiting a drinking-place " I do not mean going down and looking at the water, for 

 this is generally but a waste of time. I mean, you pass upwind of it with a view to 

 cutting across the spoor of any animal which may have passed down to the stream or 

 back from it. 



In the forest spoor will be easy enough to see, as the hoofs sink deep into the soft 

 and rotten floor of the forest, and the shoots and leaves are easily trampled down. 

 It is just after the rains that tracking is so easy in the forests, as the shoots have 

 sprung up everywhere and the ground is not then covered with a network of tracks 

 going in every direction. Later in the year the tracks grow somewhat confusing. 



Havmg found a fresh track the next step is to determine if it is fresh enough to 

 follow up. This is by no means easy to tell when you are unused to forest spooring, 

 for there is so much damp and moisture about that the trampled shoots keep 

 fresh-looking for several days. Examine carefully, therefore, any trampled shoots, 

 and, if needs be, follow the tracks some way to find marks of browsing and dropped 

 leaves. 



You will probably be searching for tracks in the flatter country and above the 

 stream-banks, for in those parts the "going" is easier. Such parts, too, form 

 usually the night's grazing-grounds for game, so, when you start following a 



