The Eastern Congo 



was soon enjoying a comfortable siesta on Mother Earth. 

 However, a long rest was not to be mine that day, for, during 

 my " forty winks," Kamwendo aroused me with the thrilling 

 words : " Njovo ! Bwana ! " (Elephant ! master !) 



To the ivory-hunter who has gotten, for better or worse, 

 the fever of the chase, the word Njovo or Tembo uttered in 

 the incisive accents of your black fellow-sportsman (for he 

 is a sportsman, when aU is said and done), is like the crack 

 of a whip to a horse and is calculated to wake a man up every 

 time. I was, therefore, up on the instant and listening for 

 the breaking of branches that Kamwendo had heard. 



Sure enough, coming nearer and nearer in our direction 

 could be heard the swish of grass and leaves, that denotes 

 the approach of elephants in the bush. The wind blowing 

 steadily, on this occasion, in our direction, it was unnecessary 

 to move from where we were ; we therefore stood silently 

 expectant, as the animals came on. Presently we made them 

 out through the screen of bushes. First an enormous elephant 

 which I at once recognised as our friend of the morning, and 

 who had evidently turned on his tracks after joining up with 

 the small elephant that now followed in his rear. 



The big fellow was moving slowly, and as he stopped 

 under a big tree not twenty paces from me I distinctly made 

 out the two dark streaks of dried blood, where my bullets 

 had entered his left shoulder. As the elephant was now 

 standing diagonally facing me there was no time to waste, 

 so resting my small 8-mm. Mauser on a convenient tree, I 

 took steady aim at his eye and fired. He dropped as if pole- 

 axed and lay kicking on the ground, shot through the brain. 

 On going forward to examine the great beast I knew, without 

 the aid of a tape, that I had at last bagged the father-of-all- 



232 



