194 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



I looked like Neptune when I rejoined my party, 

 which had now come up. All around elephants were 

 trumpeting like mad. It was dusk, so I halted where 

 I was, in order to send next morning a couple of men 

 to cut out the trophies I was certain needed but the 

 knife to secure. I was an idiot not to stay myself, but 

 I did not feel justified in wasting the time. I retrieved 

 nothing. For the next five days we passed, in dif- 

 ferent herds, quite a hundred elephants a day. When 

 marching in the dark it was not pleasant, not to say 

 dangerous, to hear the echoes of the forest awakened 

 by a herd breaking away quite close to us, the fear 

 being that the inquisitive calves would come to inves- 

 tigate and be followed by their mammas to protect 

 them. 



The trees were not so large as further north. It 

 was, however, picturesque. The rocky, undulating 

 country formed valleys, in one of which my men 

 declared they saw the tracks of eland. I could not 

 make them out myself. 



One morning we halted near a string of pools 

 through which the water perceptibly trickled. There 

 was a great quantity of rubber vines about. At the 

 edge of the pool was the track of rhinoceros, accen- 

 tuated by the scar he rips along the path as he walks. 

 Natives are convinced that he does this with his horn, 

 which, being of the nature of matted hair and not 

 joined to the bone of the head, they maintain hangs 

 over his nose like a busby bag when he is unsuspicious. 

 Ridiculous, of course. 



Of course, we being much further west than the 



