FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES 179 
native women and will not be disturbed by the sight 
of one of them. After seeing the women I am not 
surprised that they feel that way about it, but I 
don’t see how they can tell the women from the 
men. Possibly because they know that only the 
women do such manual labor as to carry wood. 
In the afternoon we reached the bamboos which 
lie above the forest belt. Here the ground is 
clean and heavily carpeted with dry bamboo leaves. 
The bamboos grow close together, all seemingly of 
the same size, and are pervaded with a cool, green¬ 
ish shadow that is almost sunny in comparison with 
the deep, solemn shades of the great forest. 
Then we struck a trail. The old Wanderobo 
guide said it was only an hour or so old and that 
we should soon overtake the elephant. It was evi¬ 
dently only one elephant and not a large one. It 
is fascinating to watch an experienced elephant 
hunter and to see how eloquent the trail is to him. 
A broken twig means something, the blades of 
grass turned a certain way will distinguish the fresh 
trail from the old one, the footprints in the soft 
earth, the droppings—all tell a definite story to 
him, and he knows when he is drawing down upon 
his quarry. As we proceeded his movements be¬ 
came slower and more cautious, and the plodding 
drudgery of following an elephant trail gave way 
to suppressed excitement. 
Slower and slower he went, and finally he indi¬ 
cated that only the gunbearers and ourselves should 
continue. The porters were left behind, and in sin- 
