SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 77 
"cutting away earth from the end or side of the pitfall, quicker 
_ thana navvy could with.a spade, and at last successfully freeing 
_ their companion, who stamps all the débris of the broken- 
_ down sides beneath his feet, by helping him with their trunks 
_ up the rough kind of incline they have made. This oc- 
ei curred one night within 300 yards of our waggons ; we, ot 
| course, did not see the operations, but we heard them being 
carried on, and the elephants talking to one another, and these 
were the inferences the Kafirs drew next morning from the 
_ foot-marks and appearances, and they assured me the case was 
not uncommon. If the wariness of these heavy animals among 
Pitfalls is wonderful, not less to be admired is the way in which 
they manage to clamber up trackless heights, and come down 
down it, and even that at considerable risk, but over it, in 
‘Indian file, come eighteen or twenty elephants making their 
“way to the jungle below. As they reach the sharp inclines they 
it down, and thrusting their hind legs straight out under them, 
far forward as they can, they ‘go it,’ as Albert Smith used 
say of the Alpine tourist, and everyone comes safely to 
bottom. They take readily to deep water, displacing so 
that only the ridge of the back, and upper part of the 
head down to the eyes, show above the surface ; they carry the 
a i and swim ey, I have known them come to the 
= the flight was complete—this was in India. 
| elephant country we were always obliged to be very 
twice at the same place in a river. This is partly due to 
n, though perhaps it may chiefly depend on their soon 
