The Elephant 



congenial home for them. These conditions ate not such as are commonly 

 supposed to appertain to an ideal elephant haunt. It is not in the cool 

 aisles of shady forests, such as one had been accustomed to associate in his 

 mind with these stately creatures — making up with the giant trees a 

 harmonious picture, such as is sometimes described as their natural habitat 

 in Asia — that we find them. Even in the rare localities where such 

 surroundings are to be found in Central Africa, it is not there that the 

 elephant finds his safest resting-place. 



Lord Dclamere. 



Those great trunks and spreading branches offer too convenient harbour 

 for possible lurking enemies, while the absence of undergrowth would 

 expose the bulky bodies to attack by poisoned arrows or harpoons. Their 

 tracks, indeed, prove that elephants stray through such forests ; and mud 

 smeared on trunks here and there — sometimes to a marvellous height, 

 suggesting fabulous size in the plasterer — is the plainest of attestations ; 

 but these visits are paid only in the hours of darkness, as a rule. No 

 tropical luxuriance of vegetation characterises their most frequented 



