26 Great and Small Game of Africa 



of the other kinds of food are obtainable. As already pointed out, the 

 wild elephants frequent particular widely-separated districts, where the 

 kinds of vegetation they subsist on are more or less plentiful. Even there, 

 except in rare cases, it would be impossible to collect during the halts 

 sufficient to feed marching elephants, and in most places along the route 

 traversed by caravans there is none. It must be borne in mind that 

 animals in a state of nature have nothing to do but seek their food, and 

 elephants may spend the whole night and part of the day in wandering about 

 in search of it, plucking here a mouthful and there a scrap ; and it is only 

 in localities where the bayonet aloe (called " makongi " by the Swahilis) 

 grows in beds — a plant which forms the favourite food of the elephant in 

 the districts where it is abundant — that natural provender in quantity could 

 be readily obtained. How, then, are these transport elephants to be fed ? 

 Moreover, I am told that, even in India, the ordinary transport of the 

 country is never performed by elephants — they are much too costly a 

 means — and I feel sure that other methods will have to be found to 

 solve that troublesome problem in Africa, though I am far from asserting 

 that in particular districts they might not prove useful. 



In hunting elephants the direction of the wind is the most important 

 consideration. They are exceedingly keen-scented, and the slightest 

 suspicion of taint in the air will put them on the alert, and set them feeling 

 about, with the sensitive tips of their trunks uplifted, for the faintest breath 

 carrying confirmation of their fears as to the proximity of their one enemy. 

 Their sight, on the other hand, is not good ; and, if you are careful not to 

 expose yourself when creeping up, or when in full view to remain motion- 

 less, you are not likely to be detected readily. If it were not for this one 

 fact, elephant hunting would be almost equivalent to suicide. Their 

 hearing is, I believe, acute enough ; but they are so accustomed to all sorts 

 of sounds made by their companions that they are not easily alarmed by 

 any slight noise unless endorsed by the evidence of other senses. Even 



