XV RETURN TO LAKE RUDOLPH 349 



he was fatally hit, the result proved that I must have made a 

 bad shot. 



The elephant ran straight into a large patch of jungle 

 which extended along the shore, at this part, from just beyond 

 where he had been drinking. Now this was that peculiar kind 

 of dense cover already described in an account of a hunt in 

 the valley of the Seya, mainly composed of a plant which 

 grows in low, damp situations where the ground is salt, which 

 forms an impenetrable and almost solid mass of vegetation. I 

 was not in the humour to rush into thick cover, but by working 

 round the edge we were able to get along between the water 

 and the thicket. The jungle was not very high, but there was 

 not a tree of any kind to get a view from ; however, finding a 

 spot where there was a slight knoll or rise in the ground, I got 

 on to Juma's shoulders and was able to see over the cover, and 

 there my bull stood in the middle, the top of his back and head 

 showing above it. He was standing alone, but farther on I 

 could see the foreheads or back ridges of some twenty others, 

 perhaps more, standing in a clump, evidently on their guard, 

 facing outwards and frequently trying the wind for suspicious 

 odours with their uplifted trunks. I tried every way to get a 

 shot at the solitary bull, which I took to be the same I had 

 shot at, without actually crawling to right under it, but could 

 see nothing but the top of its forehead, even when I had entered 

 the jungle by a path running parallel with the shore and got 

 quite near it. 



I felt ashamed of myself; it was ignominious to be beaten. 

 At last I mustered up courage, and, though I didn't like it — I 

 confess I did not like it a bit — crept through a narrow little 

 overgrown path, at right angles to that we had come along, to 

 within certainly considerably under ten paces of it. The wind 

 was right, and though it had nearly died away about sunrise, 

 was blowing pretty steadily now. I sat down in my tunnel, and 

 could see the elephant's hind feet and a little of the leg above, 

 but no other part of it. I determined, since nothing else was 



