384 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
and the beautifully marked harnessed antelope rams of 
the west coast forests. The ewes and young rams showed 
the harness markings even more plainly; and, as with 
all bushbuck, were of small size compared to the old rams. 
These bushbuck were found in tall grass, where the ground 
was wet, instead of in the thick bush where their East 
African kinsfolk spend the daytime. 
At the bushbuck camp we met a number of porters 
returning from the Congo, where they had been with an 
elephant poacher named Busherri—at least that was as 
near the name as we could make out. He had gone into 
the Congo to get ivory, by shooting and trading; but the 
wild forest people had attacked him, and had killed him 
and seven of his followers, and the others were straggling 
homeward. In Kampalla we had met an elephant hunter 
named Quin who had recently lost his right arm in an 
encounter with a wounded tusker. Near one camp the 
head chief pointed out two places, now overgrown with 
jungle, where little villages had stood less than a year be¬ 
fore. In each case elephants had taken to feeding at night 
in the shambas, and had steadily grown bolder and bolder 
until the natives, their crops ruined by the depredations 
and their lives in danger, had abandoned the struggle, and 
shifted to some new place in the wilderness. 
We were soon to meet elephant ourselves. The morn¬ 
ing of the 28 th was rainy; we struck camp rather late, 
and the march was long, so that it was mid-afternoon when 
Kermit and I reached our new camping place. Soon 
afterward word was brought us that some elephants were 
near by; we were told that the beasts were in the habit of 
devastating the shambas, and were bold and truculent, hav- 
