no After Big Game in Central Africa 



a charge. . . . Hardly have we reached it and turned 

 to the right than an elephant appears on our heels, 

 and, carried on by its momentum, enters the water, in 

 which it flounders, continuing, with ears erect and 

 trunk twisted, to cry out, and endeavouring to recover 

 our scent, which it has lost because of our sharp 

 turn to the right. Instinctively we have plunged 

 into the reeds as soon as it entered the river, so as not 

 to be discovered ; but we are only imperfectly hidden. 

 . . . We observe that it is the female which charged 

 us, doubtless to protect her young one, which it 

 thought in danger. She is alarmingly near, and yet 

 if we move she will see us ! . . . She retreats and 

 then advances towards us. ... Ah I she sees us ! ... 

 It is a choice between two dangers : better fire at her 

 at once. As I have my 8-bore still in my hand 

 (I took it immediately after firing), I fire a shot which 

 misses the heart, wounds her on the shoulder, and 

 increases her anger. She turns straight in our direc- 

 tion, facing the smoke, and this time really sees us. 

 If she charges it will be impossible to flee into the 

 entangled reeds. . . . "Fire again, sapristi!" I say 

 to myself, and my bullet, passing under her twisted 

 trunk, strikes her full in the breast at the base of the 

 neck. . . . She turns aside, stunned. ... I see that 

 she is wounded to death. . . . Poor beast ! . . . Never 

 have I been able to contemplate so near the death of 

 an elephant in all its details. She is lying eight 

 yards from us in the full sunlight at the edge of the 

 water, which is tinged with red, and we look on in 

 silence while life leaves the enormous body ; her flank 



