54 
THREE MONTHS IN PAHANG 
Tlie elepliant was a big one, but had miserable tusks 
scarcely three feet long. Wan Hadji came np with the 
others and I felt very ashamed of m\' trophy. But while 
we were all standing round the dead elephant, we heard a 
noise in the jungle a little iip stream from where we were. 
Again and iigain we heard it — unmistakably the sound made 
by an elephant bathiiig. What a cliance to recover my 
mistake, the big bull of course ; but why on earth he had not 
cleared out at the noise of the ishots, and subsequently at the 
noise of our voices, I cannot conceive. I believe he must have 
been deaf. Yasin and I made a wide detour and came back to 
the river abnut where we thouj,dit the sounds had come from. 
Staring hard through tlie jungle I made otit a great yellow 
mass which I thought was an ant hill, until a great trunk 
detached itself from one end and emitted volumes of dirty 
water on to the top of it. Moving to one side I got a perfectly 
clear view of this elephant through a vista between the trees. 
I got a shock when I saw that his tusks were small too, 
althougli rather longer and distinctly more curved than the 
one I had just shot. I lifted my rif^e and covered his ear hole* 
said **dead" to myself, and pul my rifle down again. Suddenly 
the elephant stiffened, raised his trunk which he waved about 
in the air (or a second or two, then solemnly moved rouiui in 
our direction, pressed the centre of his trunk against his fore- 
head with the tip pointing straight towards us, continued his 
movement until his right side took the position lately occupied 
by his left, lifted his huge feet out of the mud on the river bank,, 
and majesticall)- disapperired into the jungle. No retreat 
could have been done in a more stately manner, no screaming, 
no trurnpetting, just a dignified exit. Well, this was an 
extraordinary ending to inn tracking, and I was pu;:;fled 
beyond expression. We looked at where the elephant had 
been hathing and examined his tracks. It seemed to me that 
the tracks were not quite as big as those of the solitary bull 
that we had followed so f'cU*; yet where could we have made a 
mistake? Not where they left the herd, because since then 
the huge holes punched in the soft clay of the hill side where 
the bigger bull had left his companion shortly before we heard 
them had been unmistakable- Possibly the beast 1 had killed 
was the original bull after all, but if so as Yasin said his tusks 
were lidiik paint . I saw quite distinctly when the elephant 
raised his trunk and saluted us — Yasin would have it that he 
was deliberately acknowledging his escape — that the under 
side of the trunk and part of his lower jaw were mottled with 
white, although the ri;5t of his body was a yellow ochre colour 
from the mud, T think he must have been an old elephant; he 
