52 THE ELEPHANT 



was certainly not more than 3 or 4 yards from 

 me. In trying to edge away my foot caught 

 in some kind of a traiUng creeper, and at the 

 shght noise the great beast wheeled round, 

 spreading her enormous ears like two sails, and 

 raising her trunk suspiciously to smell the air. 

 It was an anxious moment. Had she advanced 

 one step I must have fired instantly, and, apart 

 from her sex, her tusks were small and insignifi- 

 cant, but as I remained absolutely motionless, 

 somewhat screened as I was by the low grass 

 and brushwood, she quite failed to discover me, 

 and after a moment or two, which I frankly 

 confess seemed to me to be much longer, she 

 dropped her ears and trunk, wheeled round, 

 and strolled away a few paces. In the end, 

 to my great mortification, I found there was no 

 bull with this group of elephants, so I was forced 

 to return to camp empty-handed. That was 

 bad luck, but not so bad as that which I experi- 

 enced a few years ago at the southern end of 

 Lake Nyasa. 



I had just concluded an official tour which 

 had led me across that portion of the African 

 continent between the coast at Ibo and the lake I 

 have named, and, stopping to wait for one of the 

 Protectorate gunboats which had been kindly 

 sent for my expedition by the Governor at a 

 place called Fort Maguire, a large and populous 

 community of interesting Mohammedan Yaos, 

 the latter complained to me of the depredations 

 committed by the elephants among the maize 

 and millet fields. They even showed me the 



