V 
NDOROBO ELEPHANT-HUNTING 
111 
rise bordering the valley on the north, and, on reaching the top, 
we turned off a little to the right of the spoor to ascend a small 
koppie. The bush was here too tall and leafy to allow of 
anything being seen ; but, after listening a little while, my 
Ndorobo companions heard him. Being too near the wind, we 
made back and came cautiously up it, after a circuit to the 
left, instead of following the spoor again. Having arrived near 
the spot where he had been heard, we waited again for another 
sign, and so long was it without his making a sound, that we 
almost came to the conclusion he must have winded us when 
on the koppie and gone on ; but I persisted in proceeding with 
the greatest care until we should again cut his spoor, and before 
we had advanced many steps farther we all heard him blow 
distinctly quite close ahead. Motioning my attendants to 
remain there, I picked my steps gingerly on, intensely on the 
look-out, but could not see him until I got within a very short 
distance, when a little open track in the bush showed me his 
huge hind-quarters towards me. This being the only opening 
to leeward, I came up behind him, and stood within a distance 
I had time to deliberately calculate to be no more than five 
paces from his tail. To the right I dared not go, on account of 
the wind ; to the left the jungle was dense. There was nothing 
for it but to wait. 
Now there is a curious contrast in the aspect at close 
quarters presented respectively by the two ends of an elephant, 
apart from the obvious difference in the moral effect on the 
hunter according to which extremity is towards him. When 
viewed from the rear there is a comically clownish, baggy- 
breeched, knock-kneed look about his drooping hinder parts ; 
while a front view of his majestic head, armed with gleaming 
tusks and furnished with a far-reaching supple trunk, and set 
off by the grotesque great ears, outstretched as if to catch any 
suspicious sound—all raised aloft on colossal fore quarters, so 
that the top of his massive forehead may be not less than 
II feet from the ground—is as singularly impressive and 
