THE FOREST. I 79 



for spoor and locate the animals ; for in the forest elephants will at different times 

 take up their quarters in altered localities. 



It is as well to make the natives you send out bring in a stick cut to the size of 

 the spoor, so that you are not led away after females and young. When you get 

 good khabar start off with about two or three carriers bearing a little light tent, or 

 waterproof sheet to rig up for shelter at nights, and take also a few stores, such as 

 biltong, flour, salt, pepper, cocoa, saccharine, tobacco, and matches, also a canteen, 

 in the body of which you can cook soup made from biltong, and in the top of 

 which you can brew your cocoa. The natives will also have a few days' supply of 

 food and a cooking-pot. 



Thus lightly equipped you can start ofT to locate the elephants, not forgetting to 

 take a small axe and a billhook with you. These will not only be useful to cut 

 firewood, but will also serve to cut out the tusks of the elephants, if you are fortunate 

 enough to bag any. 



The next proceeding is to follow your native guide to the place where he has 

 found the fresh spoor, have a look at it, and decide whether it is good enough to 

 follow up. 



Here I might say that if the spoor denotes the presence of a large herd in the 

 thick forest, or, worse still, in the thick bush or bamboos, it is, in these days of 

 stringent game regulations, not worth the following ; more especially is this the case in 

 a place where the elephants have been much molested. For in the bamboos (the 

 home of the forest elephant) the females and young move about in vast herds, with 

 perhaps but only one shootable male with them. The chances, then, that you will 

 strike this one big male out of the whole herd, whilst you are walking in the thick 

 undergrowth, may be said to be infinitesimal. 



Moreover, if you meet an animal face to face in such country the situation is 

 awkward, and often results in your having to shoot the animal whether you like 

 to or not, and there goes one of the two elephants allowed on your licence for 

 a worthless tusk. 



What is still more dangerous, however, is when the elephants become alarmed, 

 which must happen sooner or later when elephants are all around you and you 

 are still hoping to strike up against your shootable male, and then they 

 stampede up and down, crashing through the bamboos as if the stems were so much 

 grass. When this sort of panic starts, most people would be willing to give all they 

 possessed for a big tree behind which to stand, instead of the indecently insufficient 

 shelter of a bamboo stalk, which is the only available cover. In these days of 

 stringent licences and much-peppered elephants, which have been driven into all 



