236 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



I took them back to camp with me, resolved to 

 make an attempt to domesticate them. 



In this effort I only partially succeeded, for even 

 when on their best behaviour, they evinced un- 

 mistakable signs of their wild nature, and their 

 odour remained unchanged to the last, surviving 

 repeated attacks of the strongest of scented soaps. 

 I used to call them to food with a cry resembling 

 their own eerie howl, when prowling at night 

 among the mysterious shadows of the forest, and 

 they soon learned to come at once in response, 

 but during feeding they reverted to wild animals 

 pure and simple. Their diet, by the way, from the 

 puppy stage, consisted solely of meat, in fact, they 

 would touch no other kind of food, and as they 

 were particularly fond of young, fat hippo, I have 

 occasionally shot these animals in the Rovuma 

 River on purpose to give them a treat. 



After three months of 'civilization,' the first, 

 through some cause unknown to me, sickened and 

 died, and when eighteen months old, the second 

 picked up poison and came to an untimely end. 

 The third, whom I called Jumbo, I kept for more 

 than two years. He became a great pet of mine, 

 and, considering his ancestry and nature, conceived 

 an extraordinary affection for me, assiduously follow- 

 ing me out on my hunting expeditions, and often, 

 at evening, in camp, rolling and jumping about 



