ELEPHANT HUNTING IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA 

 WITH RIFLE AND CAMERA 



By Carl E. Akeley 



With Photographs by the Author and Copyrighted by Carl B. Akeley 



ONE evening in Uganda, when 

 rather discouraged after a day of 

 unsuccessful effort to locate ele- 

 phants, we suddenly heard the squeal of 

 an elephant far to the east. The squeal- 

 ing and trumpeting increased in fre- 

 quency and distinctness until in an hour's 

 time we realized that a large herd was 

 drifting slowly in our direction. By 

 eleven o'clock they had come very close, 

 some within two hundred yards of camp, 

 and on three sides of us. The crashing 

 of trees and the squealing and trumpet- 

 ing as the elephants fed, quarreling over 

 choice morsels, resulted in a din such as 

 we had never before heard from ele- 

 phants. 



Our men kept innumerable fires going 

 for fear that the elephants might take a 

 notion to raid the plantain grove in which 

 we were camped, and at daylight I was 

 oft' for the day's hunt. The herd had 

 drifted down to the forest side, forty 

 minutes from camp ; in fact many of them 

 had entered the forest. For a couple of 

 miles we traveled through a scene of dev- 

 astation such as a cyclone leaves in its 

 wake : 8-foot grass trampled flat ex- 

 cept for here and there an "island" that 

 had been spared ; half of the scattering 

 trees twisted off and stripped of bark, and 

 of all branches and leaves. 



We approached within a few hundred 

 yards of the forest, where the grass was 

 undisturbed except for trails showing 

 how the elephants at daybreak had 

 trekked through in small bands, single 

 file. When about to cross a little wooded 

 gulley, we thought it wise to stop and 

 look over the situation. From the top of 

 a mass of rocks we discovered a cow 

 feeding only 20 yards away and others 

 all about in the high grass between us 

 and the timber (see page 783). 



There was clear passage to a rocky 

 elevation too vards to the left, for which 



we made, and while standing there, 75 

 feet above the level, I received an im- 

 pression of Africa that must remain with 

 me to the last. 



There was not a breath of wind, and 

 the forest, glistening in the morning sun- 

 light, stretched away for miles to the east 

 and to the west and up the slope to the 

 north. Here and there in the high grass 

 that intervened between our perch and 

 the forest edge, 300 yards away, were 

 scattered elephants singly and in groups 

 feeding and loafing along, to be swal- 

 lowed by the dark shadows of the dense 

 forest side. 



SCOUTS IN ACTION 



From the gulley which I had started to 

 cross a little time before there stalked 25 

 or 30 of the great beasts, their bodies 

 shining with a fresh coating of mud and 

 water from the pool where they had 

 drunk and bathed. As is usual with big 

 herds, they had broken up into small 

 bands on entering the forest, and now, as 

 the last of them disappeared into the 

 cover of the trees, a fuller appreciation 

 of the surroundings suddenly dawned 

 upon me. From a mile or more in either 

 direction there came a reverberating roar 

 and crash as the great hordes of monsters 

 ploughed their way through the tangles 

 of vegetation, smashing trees as they 

 quarreled, played, and fed, all regardless 

 of forestry regulations. 



Where the little stream at the bottom 

 of the gulley entered the forest, troops of 

 black and white Colobus monkeys were 

 racing about the trees, swearing at the 

 elephants. From the tree tops deeper in 

 the forest two or three troops of chim- 

 panzees yelled and shouted at one another 

 or everything in general, baboons barked, 

 and great hornbills did their best to 

 drown all other noises with their dis- 

 cordant rasping chatter. 



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