66 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



cultivated grounds, far below, belonging to a tribe called 

 Mnyithu (the same I afterwards had the difference with), where 

 elephants had frequently been seen of late. The fact was we 

 were not provisioned for a campaign in the bush, and the}- — 

 and my own men too — were hungry ; so, as I had seen no 

 game, I was constrained to consent. We had the most trying 

 day imaginable, through the very densest, most abominable 

 jungle it is possible to conceive. Our guides eventually lost 

 themselves and us, and it was not till late in the afternoon that 

 we at last struggled out into shambas. We had found no 

 fresh spoor all day (except of a bushbuck) ; but I was rewarded 

 for my toil by a wonderful display of gorgeous butterflies 

 around a spring of crystal water in a valley, at which we rested 

 while I caught a number of fine specimens. 



After an uncomfortable and rather hungry night, I was 

 shown the spoor of two bulls ; and I made another attempt 

 to overcome the difficulties of these extensive thickets. But it 

 was useless ; it is so leafy one cannot see a yard ; and after 

 much crawling through tunnels, shoving one's way — bent 

 double — or charging sideways between the meeting bushes, all 

 the satisfaction I had was to find the bulls had winded us and 

 gone. It seemed wonderful how such huge creatures could 

 crash through and leave so small an opening after their passage. 

 I followed for an hour or two all their windings, but, as they 

 kept down wind, had to give in. We had still a great deal of 

 this sort of leafy, elastic cover to overcome on our way toward 

 camp, after relinquishing the pursuit, before we at length, to our 

 infinite relief, got once more into the cool, pleasant forest. It 

 was delightful to swing along its shady avenues, comparatively 

 free from undergrowth, and seemed rest by comparison with 

 the labour of tearing one's way through that dreadful jungle. 



I felt that I had done all I could here, for the time, and 

 that hunting elephants — dispersed as they seemed now to be- — ■ 

 in this almost limitless, impassable tract, in whose depths they 

 found a secure retreat, was waste of strength and energy. It 



