594 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May II, 1912 
With Lions and Elephants 
It is wonderfully convenient under certain con¬ 
ditions. 
To return to my dry-fly fishing. Just as I 
had got settled for the evening, my wife called 
from the shore that she wanted to come out, 
so I was under the necessity of doing the work 
all over again, and it was well past sunset when 
we were back in my chosen position. Leaving 
my companion to tend the anchor rope, I took 
position in the stern of the boat; we floated 
down stern foremost, prepared for business. 
Casting steadily, when I found that I could reach 
the edge of the bar, I told my wife to fasten 
the rope, and I gave my whole attention to the 
matter in hand. I was making good casts. Again 
and again my single fly sailed out through the 
air, striking the water with wings upraised. Per¬ 
haps a dozen casts had been made to the right, 
left and straight ahead, then came that for which 
I had been waiting. The upward rush of a 
bronze back, and the tightening of the line which 
betokened a hooked fish. Then ensued a battle 
royal. 
There is nothing quite like the battle of a 
black bass, unless it be the frenzied struggle of 
an Atlantic salmon. While the bait-caster enjoys 
his battles with the king of fresh water fish, the 
action of the short rod does not compare to that 
of a six-ounce ten-foot split bamboo. Again 
and again the fish leaped, shaking the water from 
his brown body which was twisted into impos-- 
sible shapes as he fought for liberty. But the 
little rod won out, as it has formed a habit of 
doing, and my companion slipped the landing 
net under the body of our first victim to the 
dry fly on a bass water. 
“Better liberate him,” said my companion, a 
world of pity in her eyes; but that I could not 
do, for I thought of breakfast. 
Removing the jungle cock, as the shadows 
were quite deep, I replaced it with the lighter 
colored silver doctor. The fish were not rising; 
only now and then was there a ripple on the 
surface of the water, save when some bass struck 
at my fly, more in anger I thought than from 
any desire to secure food. I have no doubt that 
had I used regular flies, allowing them to sink 
a few inches after each cast, I would have 
caught fish, but I was dry-fly fishing. Several 
fish rose to investigate before I hooked a sec¬ 
ond, which was considerably larger than the 
first, though he did not put up so spectacular a 
fight. By the time we had him in the boat it 
was quite dark, so concluded that we had best 
make our way up the river if we were to sleep 
in our beds at all. The full moon was shining, 
when the river twisted in the right direction, 
making a glistening path of silver over the water. 
It was beautiful, restful, refreshing after the 
torrid day, though I am almost certain that I 
was thinking more of the bass fishing than I was 
of the beauties of the mid-summer night, for I 
had demonstrated to my own satisfaction that 
bass could be induced to strike at a dry fly. 
Another year has rolled round and a bass sea¬ 
son is upon us once more. I have made great 
plans for experiments with this new-old method 
of fishing. I know a bass stream which one can 
wade, and I am going to whip early and late, 
in fair weather and foul, for it is stream fishing 
that is most attractive as all anglers know. 
“What fly will I use?” Certainly those I have 
mentioned, but I have created or evolved several 
others since that hot evening. 
J OHN J. WHITE, JR., of New York, spent 
last winter hunting in Africa. A friend, 
who hears from him from time to time, per¬ 
mits us to print some hunting notes taken from 
Mr. White’s letters. Under date of Jan. ii, he 
writes: 
“I had a very pleasant month on the Hasin- 
lyishu Plateau, though my hopes of trapping and 
collecting data about the Maraqueets were dashed 
by the Maraqueet uprising to protect two Elgeyo 
murderers who had taken refuge with them. 
The trouble is about over now, and after one 
battle, in which the troops were nearly led into 
an ambuscade, the Maraqueets surrendered one 
of the Elgeyo and are now looking for the other. 
The Maraqueets lost about fifty killed, but 
fought quite bravely, the women and children 
fighting with the men. One of the soldiers told 
me that some of the Maraqueets shot at one 
time as many as two or three arrows from a 
single bow. I had never heard of anything like 
that before. Fortunately for the troops, a scout 
discovered the ambush just in time, and two 
Maxim guns were turned on it. 
“I got a very fine black-maned lion, four 
lionesses and two half grown cubs last month. 
Two of the lionesses were secured in a drive. 
We saw them at the edge of a swamp, and tak¬ 
ing up a position at one end of it, put the porters 
in a big half circle on the other end, and they 
drove the lionesses straight down on us. We 
got them both without much trouble, although 
one of them charged us. 
“The day after Christmas we got into a troop 
of nearly twenty lions. We had seen them once 
before, but they were too far off to shoot. We 
got the big lion first, and then about a dozen 
lionesses bunched up together on some rocks a 
couple of huhdred yards off. We thought they 
were going to rush us and so prudently re¬ 
treated, but they separated and we began shoot¬ 
ing. It was pretty lively work for a few minutes. 
One of the lionesses charged, but we stopped 
her twenty yards off. The grass was very long, 
and I think we left three dead ones in the ravine 
which we did not dare go in after.” 
From here Mr. White went to Masindi, after 
elephants. The country is very difficult, for at 
that season the elephant grass was fifteen to 
twenty feet high, and among it stood clumps 
of trees, bound together with tropical vines. 
Little winding paths, which wander and cross 
each other, lead to native dwellings where are 
found little clearings in which were huts, like 
bowls turned upside down, a few banana trees, 
little patches of sweet potato vines, and per¬ 
haps a little cotton. 
Near here elephants were found, the herd 
being discovered after it had been followed for 
several hours, but even when the hunters had 
come up with them, they could not see the ani¬ 
mals. Fortunately, there was a tree near by 
into which Mr. White climbed. He could see 
the long grass and bushes' moving, and now and 
then an ear flapped or a trunk reached up and 
pulled down a branch. ' With a charging ele¬ 
phant behind him, a man on the ground in such 
territory would have had no hope of escape. A 
naked native might have dodged aside and hid¬ 
den, but a white man encumbered with boots 
and clothing would have been caught at once. 
After waiting for a long time a large bull 
gave a shot, but when it was killed it was found 
that it had only one tusk. 
After some little time here, it was decided 
that the country was too dangerous, and Mr. 
White and his safari headed back to Masindi 
and went south to the Kafu River. He writes 
on Feb. 22: 
“The country along the Kafu was very pleas¬ 
ant with quite a little game—cob, kongoni, bush 
buck and guinea fowl. It was an ideal country 
for elephant shooting, the grass short and plenty 
of little clumps of small trees and undergrowth 
—just what is required in approaching. Un¬ 
fortunately the only thing lacking was elephants. 
“WT were told that there had been a good 
many about, and from the quantities of old sign 
we could see that this was true, but as usual 
they had left that part of the country when the 
grass was burned. We tried for a day or two 
to find where they had gone, but without suc¬ 
cess. We found one fresh track, but could not 
overtake the animal, which crossed Kafu River 
and kept on. So again we held a council with 
our guides and trackers, and decided to head 
back for the country we had just left, but to 
keep further south, where the men told us the 
country was more open. 
“We expected to have to travel about three 
days before arriving where there was much 
chance of seeing elephants, for the Uganda 
porter, after about three hours’ marching, be¬ 
gins to feel like taking the rest of the day off. 
“We were very lucky, however, and the first 
day after we started our guides found fresh 
elephant tracks on the road, and followed only 
a couple of hours before coming up to them. 
We sent the safari ahead to camp and waited 
for our trackers, who had gone off at once, to 
come back and report. We had to wait only 
a short time. Some of them soon returned, 
saying that they had seen the herd, six bulls, and 
had left one of the trackers to keep watch. 
“Somehow we managed to miss this man and 
were much perplexed as to what to do. We 
did not dare to shout for fear of frightening 
the herd. At last we heard the tracker whistle, 
and he presently came up and reported that we 
were quite near the elephants. The wind was 
steady from them to us, and the country fairly 
open. By a careful approach we got within 
about fifty yards of them without being heard. 
That was quite close enough for me, as it is 
always a matter of conjecture which way the 
herd will run at the shots. They generally run up 
wind, which was in our favor, but it was possible 
that this time they might make an exception. 
