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ch. xiii] SMELL OF BIG GAME 
the carcass. He was full grown, and was ten feet nine 
inches high. The tusks were rather short, but thick, 
and weighed a hundred and ten pounds the pair. Out 
of the trunk we made excellent soup. 
Several times while following the trail of this big bull 
we could tell he was close by the strong elephant smell. 
Most game animals have a peculiar scent, often strong 
enough for the species to be readily recognizable before 
it is seen, if in forest or jungle. On the open plains, of 
course, one rarely gets close enough to an animal to 
smell it before seeing it; but I once smelt a herd of 
hartebeest, when the wind was blowing strongly from 
them, although they were out of sight over a gentle 
rise. Waterbuck have a very strong smell. Buffalo 
smell very much like domestic cattle, but old bulls are 
rank. More than once, in forest, my nostrils have 
warned me before my eyes that I was getting near the 
quarry whose spoor I was on. 
After leaving the elephant camp we journeyed through 
country for the most part covered with an open forest 
growth. The trees were chiefly acacias. Among them 
were interspersed huge candelabra euphorbias, all in 
bloom, and now and then one of the brilliant red- 
flowering trees, which never seem to carry many leaves 
at the same time with their gaudy blossoms. At one 
place for miles the open forest was composed of the 
pod-bearing, thick-leafed trees on which we had found 
the elephants feeding ; their bark and manner of growth 
gave them somewhat the look of jack-oaks ; where they 
made up the forest, growing well apart from one another, 
it reminded us of the cross-timbers of Texas and Okla¬ 
homa. The grass was everywhere three or four feet 
high ; here and there were patches of the cane-like 
elephant-grass, fifteen feet high. 
