278 SAVAGE SUDAN 



I landed at many points for the purpose of shooting, 

 and to study and collect birds, and almost everywhere 

 the evidence of the presence of elephants in numbers 

 surprised. In places the forests were regularly devastated, 

 big" trees uprooted or broken down, while the more open 

 parts were corrugated, ploughed up and pitted with spoor 

 two feet deep, sometimes covering hundreds of acres. 

 Particularly was this the case near Kenisa where a herd 

 of cow-elephants, enraged and aggressive by reason of 

 the best bulls having been picked out, was known as 



ELEPHANT Cow AND CALF, NEAR SHEIKH TOMBE. 



"the charging thousand." These deep tracks are made, 

 of course, in the rainy season, when the mud is soft and 

 plastic : in winter it is hard as iron. 



Here is a note from Gondokoro : " Within a couple 

 of hours from station the forest is fairly rent to bits 

 by elephants : measured several trees overthrown, 32 to 

 38 inches in circumference : another, bigger at base, had 

 been torn down at 15 feet above ground, some branches 

 stripped clean of leaf, others left green, as though destroyed 

 out of sheer mischief. Measured the biggest spoor I 

 could find 19 inches across forefoot." 



Naturally, in extra-dry seasons, such as that of 

 1912-13, elephants are found concentrated on the banks 



