62 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
we thought the rest of the game must have been frightened 
from the vicinity by the lions. 
The day after our arrival at Hembeweina I was again 
disturbed before dawn by Nur Osman, with the report that a 
lot of elephants had been heard trumpeting near the water 
during the night, and after a good breakfast we started in search 
of them. After going up the river-bank for about three miles, 
we came to the large patch of reeds at Jalelo where I had 
killed the first bull eight days before, and getting on to the 
identical spot on the high bank from which I had fired at him, 
examined the expanse of reeds. The air was much tainted by 
the dead elephant as we approached the edge of the bank, too 
much so to make us care to go into the reeds to investigate 
farther. Looking over the sea of yellow stems we suddenly 
saw two cow elephants with one large calf in company, standing 
under a date-palm well out in the reeds some two hundred and 
fifty yards distant from the spot on which we were standing. 
Wishing to get a bull, I decided not to attack them. 
My Somalis were advising me to advance upon these three 
herd elephants, and we were sitting on the edge of the bank 
intently gazing at them, when an indescribable feeling that 
something was behind made me look round, and there, standing 
right over us, not twenty yards away, was an enormous tusker 
quietly blinking his eyes at us and balancing his right leg, 
undecided whether to go on along the top of the bank behind us 
or to take a path straight down into the reeds. He must have 
come up very quietly, for no one had heard a sound, and my 
looking round seemed to have been accidental. Meanwhile, as 
we were in the open on the edge of the scarp, in a bad position 
to withstand a charge, especially as I was still lame, we waited, 
crouched as we were, keeping as still as mice, and watched the 
enormous brute making up his mind. We were so much in the 
open that had I raised my rifle he would have made us out at 
once. Perhaps I ought to have fired, but when first seen his 
head was towards us and his trunk down, so that he offered no 
certain shot. After swinging his foot once or twice he took the 
path down into the reeds, treading softly, as if afraid of cracking 
a stick, and looking curiously towards us out of the corner of his 
eye, evidently unable to make out quite what we were ; when he 
was round the bank I stood up ready to fire at him as he passed 
below. 
On reaching the lower level he seemed to scent the dead 
