THE COLONEL KILLS THREE ELEPHANTS 151 
The colonel, in parting, asked us to stop with him 
for lunch on our way back and he would tell us all 
about the elephant hunt and show us his pigskin 
library. In return we promised to photograph the 
hyena and thus be prepared to render expert testi¬ 
mony in case, some time in the future, he might 
get into a controversy with the nature fakers as 
to the truth of the incident. 
We then resumed our journey and arrived at the 
elephant camp at nine-thirty. It was a scene of 
industry. The skins of the two largest elephants 
and that of the calf had been removed the after¬ 
noon before and were spread out under a cluster of 
trees. Twenty or thirty porters were squatted 
around the various ears and strips of hide and mas¬ 
sive feet, paring off all the little particles of flesh 
or tissue that remained. As fast as a section of hide 
was stripped it was thickly covered with salt and 
rolled up. This is the preliminary step. After¬ 
wards the skin, in many places an inch in thickness, 
is pared down to a condition of pliable thinness. 
This work requires hours or even days of hard labor 
by many skilful wielders of the paring knife. The 
skulls and many of the bones are saved when an 
animal is being preserved for a museum, but when 
we arrived they had not yet been removed from the 
carcasses. 
Our first object was to visit the hyena, which we 
found still protruding from the side of his tomb. 
We photographed him from all angles, after which 
he was disinterred and exposed to full view. He 
