392 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
feeding, just on the edge of a wall of high elephant grass. 
Although we were in plain sight, ninety yards off, and 
sometimes moved about, he never saw us; for an elephant’s 
eyes are very bad. He was feeding on some thick, luscious 
grass, in the usual leisurely elephant fashion, plucking a 
big tuft, waving it nonchalantly about in his trunk, and 
finally tucking it into his mouth; pausing to rub his side 
against a tree, or to sway to and fro as he stood; and con¬ 
tinually waving his tail and half cocking his ears. 
At noon on January 5 th, 1910 , we reached Butiaba, a 
sandspit and marsh on the shores of Lake Albert Nyanza. 
We had marched about one hundred and sixty miles from 
Lake Victoria. We camped on the sandy beach by the 
edge of the beautiful lake, looking across its waters to the 
mountains that walled in the opposite shore. At mid-day 
the whole landscape trembled in the white, glaring heat; 
as the afternoon waned a wind blew off the lake, and the 
west kindled in ruddy splendor as the sun went down. 
At Butiaba we took boats to go down the Nile to the 
Lado country. The head of the water transportation ser¬ 
vice in Uganda, Captain Hutchinson, R.N.R., met us, 
having most kindly decided to take charge of our flotilla 
himself. Captain Hutchinson was a mighty hunter, and 
had met with one most extraordinary experience while 
elephant hunting; in Uganda the number of hunters who 
have been killed or injured by elephants and buffaloes is 
large. He wounded a big bull in the head, and followed 
it for three days. The wound was serious and on the 
fourth day he overtook the elephant. It charged as soon 
as it saw him. He hit it twice in the head with his .450 
double-barrel as it came on, but neither stopped nor turned 
