6o ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



went out of sight ; so I chose a cow with long and very straight 

 tusks, which stood at the outside of the clump, giving me a 

 fine chance at her temple, and had the satisfaction of seeing 

 her throw up her trunk and fall dead to my shot. I had now 

 used all the .577 cartridges I had with me, as I had unluckily 

 omitted to replenish my pouches before starting on the morning 

 of this red-letter day ; so I fell back upon the Martini-Henry, 

 which my men passed up to me, afterwards throwing me 

 cartridges one by one. The elephants were moving off, but, 

 passing diagonally across my position, were still within shot. 

 The cover was very high and dense, so that they were hidden 

 even from my commanding perch ; but two stood with their 

 heads in view long enough to give me another opportunity, and 

 I succeeded in dropping both. The last fell with its head rest- 

 ing on the other. It proved to be a young one with very small 

 teeth, unfortunately, but in such thick jungle it is impossible 

 to pick and choose much. I had now eleven elephants dead. 



The sun by this time was low, so that it would take us all 

 our time to reach camp by dark ; and as I did not feel sure 

 how the natives here, against whom I had been warned, might 

 be disposed towards the white intruder (though so far as I had 

 seen they seemed friendly enough), I thought it prudent to go 

 back without further delay. I accordingly had the tails of the 

 last five elephants cut off — getting a bit of a scare over one, 

 which could not be found at first, but proved to be dead safe 

 enough, to my relief — and tramped hard back to my boma, 

 meeting before I got there some of my men, who, as it began 

 to get dusk and I had not arrived, had started to see what had 

 become of me. I was, of course, well pleased with my success, 

 though I considered I ought to have secured a couple more 

 elephants, and particularly the big fellow I had wounded. I 

 had not been feeling very fit in the morning, but that had gone 

 off, and at night I was as fresh as possible, my feet, luckily, 

 being nearly all right again. I had used in all just twenty 

 cartridges. 



