CHAPTER XII 



" 'TWAS THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS." PHOTOGRAPH- 

 ING A CHARGING ELEPHANT. CORNERING A 

 WOUNDED ELEPHANT IN A RIVER JUNGLE 

 GROWTH. A THRILLING CHARGE. 

 HASSAN'S COURAGE 



ON the night of December the twenty-third I sat 

 out in a boma watching for lions. Xone came and at 

 the first crack of dawn my two gunbearers and I 

 crawled out of the tangled mass of thorn branches, 

 and prepared to return to camp two miles away. 

 We were expecting my sais to arrive with my horse 

 soon after daybreak, and while waiting for him to 

 come, and for my gunbearers to get the blankets 

 tied up, I went across to a neighboring swamp in the 

 hope of getting a bushbuck. I was about three hun- 

 dred yards from the boma when my attention was 

 drawn to a movement in the trees about a quarter of 

 a mile away. I looked and saw what I first thought 

 was a herd of zebras coming toward me. They 

 looked dark against the faint light of early dawn 

 and seemed surprisingly big. Then I realized! 

 They were elephants ! I had only my little gun and 

 my big double-barreled cordite was at the boma, 

 three hundred yards away. Breathlessly I ran for it, 

 fearing that the elephants might cut me off before 



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