274 THROUGH MAS AIL AND TO THE BORDERS OF KIKUYU 



the shoulder, near the edge of the huge unwieldy ear. At the 

 same moment I got a tremendous blow in the face, and saw 

 blood streaming down on the still smoking gun. I could not 

 imagine what had happened, and took no further notice of the 

 blood then, for I was absorbed in watching what was going on 

 in front of me. The wounded elephant had approached a step 

 nearer and was apparently about to charge. There he stood, 

 drawn up to his full height, so that he looked enormously tall 

 but thin, his ears outspread, and his trunk, which he wound in 

 serpentine coils, threateningly uplifted. And on either side of 

 him, shoulder to shoulder, stood two of his comrades also with 

 outspread ears and uplifted trunks, whilst behind him loomed the 

 fourth. Motionless the four remained, standing sniffing the air 

 and peering towards our acacia, the silence only broken by the 

 dripping down of my blood. I had been almost stunned by the 

 blow on my face, my mad zeal for hunting was gone, and I felt 

 incapable of firing another shot, however necessary, in my own 

 defence. The few seconds during which the elephants remained 

 standing seemed to me an eternity, but presently they all 

 turned tail and dashed off, the noise of the cracking of branches 

 gradually dying away. 



I now discovered that my nose was split nearly open, the 

 right nostril hanging loose. The recoil of the elephant gun is 

 so lessened by a thick piece of indiarubber at the end of the 

 butt that it is hardly felt, but the barrels have a strong 

 tendency to fly up on firing. I had already experienced this, 

 but was careless, and moreover I fired lying down, which one 

 should never do with so heavy a gun. The rather sharp-edged 

 comb of the left hammer slit up one nostril, and cut the bridge 

 of my nose. How glad I was that we made it a rule never to 

 cock both barrels of our elephant gun. 



I bound up my nose as well as I could, noted the direction 

 of the elephants' spoor, and then returned to the camp in the 



