TO THE UASIN GISHU 
349 
were smaller, but better shaped. The latter stood half 
facing me, and I put the bullet from the right barrel of the 
Holland through her lungs, and fired the left barrel for the 
heart of the other. Tarlton, and then Akeley and Kermit, 
followed suit. At once the herd started diagonally past us, 
but half halted and faced toward us when only twenty-five 
yards distant, an unwounded cow beginning to advance 
with her great ears cocked at right angles to her head; and 
Tarlton called ‘‘Look out; they are coming for us.” At 
such a distance a charge from half a dozen elephant is a 
serious thing; I put a bullet into the forehead of the ad¬ 
vancing cow, causing her to lurch heavily forward to her 
knees; and then we all fired. The heavy rifles were too 
much even for such big beasts, and round they spun and 
rushed off. As they turned I dropped the second cow I had 
wounded with a shot in the brain, and the cow that had start¬ 
ed to charge also fell, though it needed two or three more 
shots to keep it down as it struggled to rise. The cow at 
which I had first fired kept on with the rest of the herd, 
but fell dead before going a hundred yards. After we had 
turned the herd Kermit with his Winchester killed a bull 
calf, necessary to complete the museum group; we had 
been unable to kill it before because we were too busy 
stopping the charge of the cows. I was sorry to have to 
shoot the third cow, but with elephant starting to charge 
at twenty-five yards the risk is too great, and the need of 
instant action too imperative, to allow of any hesitation. 
We pitched camp a hundred yards from the elephants, 
and Akeley, working like a demon, and assisted by Tarlton, 
had the skins off the two biggest cows and the calf by the 
time night fell; I walked out and shot an oribi for supper. 
