CHAPTER III 



TOUCH AND GO 



NEAR the Sultan Leanduka's village on the 

 Luwegu River, in German East Africa, I had, in 

 the Autumn of 1908, a most exciting adventure 

 with an elephant. All day long, we had kept 

 doggedly on the tracks of a herd of five big bulls, at 

 one time forcing our way through dense scrub 

 bristling with thorns, at another warily spooring 

 among belts of giant reeds which marked the dried- 

 up courses of tributary streamlets of the Luwegu, 

 itself, at the time, a mere winding expanse of soft, 

 dry sand. Towards evening, we came up with our 

 quarry in an open space, where the sere grass had 

 been levelled by winds and trampled by game, and 

 here I managed, without any notable incident, to 

 account for four of the herd. The fifth, I wounded 

 in the region of the heart as he was bolting full 

 speed across a clearing (where the natives had fired 

 the grass), dotted here and there with a few stunted 

 trees. Immediately on being hit, he pivoted round, 



