2o6 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chai-. 



a little way farther, but the path soon became almost im- 

 passable, and I decided it would be foolhardy to go on where 

 escape would be impossible and one might be trampled to 

 death without any malicious intention on the part of the 

 elephants. Besides, it was getting dusk ; so, as we could see 

 nothing of my wounded elephant, I made for camp. I had 

 an instinctive confidence that this elephant was mortall}- hit, 

 and felt no doubt but that I should secure his short thick tusks 

 {o{ which I had caught a clear enough vievv^ to show that they 

 were those of a young bull). It took us till quite eight o'clock 

 to reach camp, going hard through the open. After cleaning 

 my rifles and the usual bath I got some dinner about ten and 

 turned in by eleven, well pleased with this extra stroke of luck — 

 an unexpected one, as I had supposed all the elephants to have 

 already cleared out of the whole valley. We had no Ndorobo 

 natives with us, so had to rely entirely on our own spooring on 

 this hunt, nor did any turn up at all that day. 



As we had been already loaded up to the last pound almost 

 we could possibly carry, with the additional ivory now obtained 

 it would be beyond the capacity of my little part)' to trans- 

 port all at once. So, first thing on the morning after the hunt 

 just described, I sent off four porters with loads of ivory for EI 

 Bogoi camp, in charge of Fundi, one of my responsible men. 

 The porters were to return at once, after depositing the ivory, 

 and should, I calculated, get back on the third day. The tusks 

 were, as usual, to be buried at once, for greater security, and 

 particularly as a precaution against fire ; for ivory is said to 

 burn like a candle, and the grass huts in which one stores one's 

 goods are particularly inflammable and liable to catch fire 

 through the carelessness of the men in charge. 



Soon after despatching them, I started again, to see if any 

 elephants were still to be found in the neighbourhood. Cutting 

 across the valley again, to find out if the herd had come this 

 way in the night, we found spoor at once, close to camp. We 

 wasted a lot of time puzzling it out, before we could get fairly 



