358 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
as of snapping trees, and splashing in the edge of the lake ; so 
in the morning, after packing up, I sent my gun-bearers along 
the shore to see if there were any fresh elephant tracks. 
There were no signs of such, though, so I concluded it must 
have been hippos disturbing my rest. In consequence of this 
delay we did not get off till rather later than usual, but it was 
not a long march to where I intended camping; and when 
within a mile or so of the place, we crossed the spoor of three 
elephants, a little distance apart, going down to the water, two 
being large bulls, the third a cow. 
I had succeeded so well on my last hunt, attended by 
Juma only, that I determined to pursue the same tactics 
to-day, in the hope that our luck might continue ; so Square- 
face was given command of the “ safari,” with orders to form 
camp at the spot agreed upon and make all snug against my 
return. We found, on taking up the spoor, that the elephants, 
after drinking, had returned from the lake and made away 
inland. The tracks seemed quite fresh ; and, after following 
them a short way, we came to where the elephants had stood 
and dusted themselves at the foot of an ant-heap. Looking 
beyond, over pretty open country, we caught sight of them, 
far ahead, on the top of a low, open ridge, apparently feeding. 
There were four of them, standing out like huge sphinxes on 
the sky-line. The wind was then blowing from us to them, 
so we started to make a long circuit, in order to get round 
to leeward of them, though at present they were too far off 
to scent us ; but soon it became shifty, and sometimes died 
away, and we stopped to see which way it would settle down 
to blow from. After a while it came up—in gusts first, but 
finally as a good, stiff, steady breeze—from the usual south¬ 
east quarter. This was exactly favourable for us, so we went 
on, and got within two or three hundred yards without any 
difficulty or risk of alarming our game, and waited again to 
reconnoitre. 
Up to this point there had been sufficient thin bush to 
