206 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



an elephant will deliberately charge the hunter, and the 

 commonest danger occurs from the whole herd stampeding 

 in all directions and rushing blindly upon one before there is 

 time to get out of the way. 



Using the cover of an old ant-hill, we crept up to within 

 ten yards of the male, which was a huge beast. His ears 

 had already gone forward to catch the noise of the approach- 

 ing danger, but before he located it Gosling had fired at him 

 twice behind the shoulder, but missed the heart. Instantly, 

 on the report of the rifle, the females with their young 

 crashed away to the right, while the wounded elephant 

 turned and dashed off in the opposite direction. After an 

 exciting chase of five hundred yards we came up with him 

 in an open glade where he was standing among the rest of 

 the herd, which now tore away in all directions. Hearing 

 the noise of our coming, but seeing nothing, for blood was 

 pouring from his eyes, he turned round and faced the bullets. 

 At each shot the great mass swayed like a forest giant 

 beneath the axe, and at the fourth he tottered and fell with a 

 crash to the ground, dead. 



At the sight of so harmless, so helpless, so noble a beast 

 reduced to a lump of dead flesh to be brought to dissolu- 

 tion by the hands of men working quicker than the 

 worms, one's heart went heavy as a stone, for the spectre of 

 death seemed suddenly magnified before one's eyes like a flea 

 under the microscope, and one turned away with a wish never 

 to kill an elephant again. 



It was now almost dark and we experienced a bad four 

 hours getting back to camp, plunging and groping our way 

 through the long wet grass to find the river. With great 



