African Game Trails 
669 
was done into a cue, we rode toward the 
place. For most of the distance we fol¬ 
lowed old elephant trails, in some places 
mere tracks beaten down through stiff 
grass which stood above the head of a man 
on horseback, in some places paths rutted 
deep into the earth. We crossed a river, 
where monkeys chattered among the tree 
tops. On an open plain we saw a rhinoc¬ 
eros cow trotting off with her calf. At last 
we came to a hill-top with, on the summit, 
a noble fig-tree, whose giant limbs were 
stretched over the palms that clustered be¬ 
neath. Here we left our horses and went 
forward on foot, crossing a palm-fringed 
stream in a little valley. From the next 
rise we saw the backs of the elephants as 
they stood in a slight valley, where the rank 
grass grew ten or twelve feet high. It was 
some time before we could see the ivory so 
as to be sure of exactly what we were shoot¬ 
ing. Then the biggest cow began to move 
slowly forward, and we walked nearly par¬ 
allel to her, along an elephant trail, until 
from a slight knoll I got a clear view of 
her at a distance of eighty yards. As she 
walked leisurely along, almost broadside to 
me, I fired the right barrel of the Holland 
into her head, knocking her flat down with 
the shock; and when she rose I put a bullet 
from the left barrel through her heart, 
again knocking her completely off her feet; 
and this time she fell permanently. She 
was a very old cow, and her ivory was rather 
better than in the average of her sex in this 
neighborhood, the tusks weighing about 
eighteen pounds apiece. She had been 
ravaging the shambas over night—which 
accounted in part for the natives being so 
eager to show her to me—and in addition 
to leaves and grass, her stomach contained 
quantities of beans. There was a young 
one—just out of calf hood, and quite able 
to take care of itself—with her; it ran off as 
soon as the mother fell. 
Early next morning Cuninghame and 
Heller shifted part of the safari to the 
stream near where the dead elephant lay, 
intending to spend the following three 
days in taking' - off and preparing the skin. 
Meanwhile Tarlton, Kermit, and I were to 
try our luck in a short hunt on the other 
side of Meru boma, at a little crater lake 
called Lake Ingouga. We could not get an 
early start, and reached Meru too late to 
push on to the lake the same^day. 
The following morning we marched to 
the lake in two hours and a half. We spent 
an hour in crossing a broad tongue of wood¬ 
land that stretched down from the wonder¬ 
ful mountain forest lying higher on the 
slopes. The trail was blind in many places 
because elephant paths of every age con¬ 
tinually led along and across it, some of 
them being much better marked than the 
trail itself, as it twisted through the sun- 
flecked shadows underneath the great trees. 
Then we came out on high downs, covered 
with tall grass and littered with volcanic 
stones and broken by ravines which were 
choked with dense underbrush. There 
were high hills, and to the left of the downs, 
toward Kenia, these were clad in forest. 
We pitched our tents on a steep cliff over¬ 
looking the crater lake—or pond, as it 
might more properly be called. It was 
bordered with sedge, and through the wa¬ 
ter-lilies on its surface we saw the reflec¬ 
tion of the new moon after nightfall. Here 
and there thick forest came down to the 
brink, and through this, on opposite sides 
of the pond, deeply worn elephant paths, 
evidently travelled for ages, wound down 
to the water. 
That evening we hunted for bush buck, 
but saw none. While sitting on a hillock 
at dusk, watching for game, a rhino trotted 
up to inspect us, with ears cocked forward 
and tail erect. A rhino always has some¬ 
thing comic about it, like a pig, formidable 
though it at times is. This one carried a 
poor horn, and therefore we were pleased 
when at last it trotted off without obliging 
us to shoot it. We saw new kinds of why- 
dah birds, one with a yellow breast, one 
with white in its tail; at this altitude the 
cocks were still in full plumage, although 
it was just past the middle of September; 
whereas at Naivasha they had begun to lose 
their long tail feathers nearly two months 
previously. 
On returning to camp we received a note 
from Cuninghame saying that Heller had 
been taken seriously sick, and Tarlton had 
to go to them. This left Kermit and me to 
take our two days’ hunt together. 
One day we got nothing. We saw; game 
on the open downs, but it was too wary, and 
though we got within twenty-five yards of 
eland in thick cover, we could only make 
out a cow, and she took fright and ran with¬ 
out our ever getting a glimpse of the bull 
