ELEPHANTS 
379 
CH. XIIl] 
with numerous patches of jungle and small forest. In 
a few minutes we heard the elephants, four or five of 
them, feeding in thick jungle, where the vines that hung 
in tangled masses from the trees, and that draped the 
bushes, made dark caves of greenery. It was difficult 
to find any space clear enough to see thirty yards ahead. 
Fortunately there was no wind whatever. We picked 
out the spoor of a big bull, and for an hour and a half 
we followed it, Kongoni usually in the lead. Two or 
three times, as we threaded our way among the bushes 
as noiselessly as possible, we caught glimpses of grey, 
shadowy bulks, but only for a second at a time, and 
never with sufficient distinctness to shoot. The elephants 
were feeding, tearing down the branches of a rather 
large-leafed tree with bark like that of a scrub oak and 
big pods containing beans ; evidently these beans were 
a favourite food. They fed in circles and zigzags, but 
toward camp, until they were not much more than half 
a mile from it, and the noise made by the porters in 
talking and gathering wood was plainly audible ; but 
the elephants paid no heed to it, being evidently too 
much accustomed to the natives to have much fear of 
man. We continually heard them breaking branches, 
and making rumbling or squeaking sounds. They then 
fed slowly along in the opposite direction, and got into 
rather more open country; and we followed faster in 
the big footprints of the bull we had selected. Suddenly, 
in an open glade, Kongoni crouched and beckoned to 
me, and through a bush I caught a glimpse of the tusker. 
But at that instant he either heard us, saw us, or caught 
a whiff of our wind, and without a moment’s hesitation 
he himself assumed the offensive. With his huge ears 
cocked at right angles to his head, and his trunk hanging 
down, he charged full tilt at us, coming steadily, silently, 
