14 
LAND & WATER 
October i8, i 917 
lated a most wonderful fund of native folk-lore, fables and 
traditions. 
The Adjutant was with me at the time, and we had quc^s- 
tioned Nicholson about this supposed mausoleum of the 
mammoths. , . 
" Well," said he, " I don't know whether there s much m 
it or not, but that's the native yarn all over Africa. They 
say that elephants always go to one place to die. It's a vast 
sort of Jumbo cemetery, 1 suppose. The yarn of the niggers 
is that this graveyard is somewhere up North, and that only 
two or three men have ever seen it and then only at great risk 
of their lives, because the place is held sacred by the elephant 
clan, and the animals are sworn to kill all intruders." 
The Adjutant laughed : " That's a good fairy tale, Nichol- 
son," said he. The old man looked serious. " Well, p'raps, 
p'raps it is. But it's strange I've never met anybody yet 
who ever saw a dead elephant." 
On the second occasion I had heard Strayne himself employ 
Ihcse queer words. I recollected that just after the advance 
itarted we had l>ecn talking of record ivory tusks one evening. 
The Adjutant after awhile, appealed to Strayne on the subject 
and the Elcphant-Huntcr-Intelligence-Olhcer had replied : 
" The biggest tusks I ever saw were in the place where the 
elephants die. There were two of them that beat that pair 
got by Powell-Cotton in the Lado by feet." 
" Wliere did you sec them ? " interjected the Adjutant 
sharply. 
" Oh ! it's a long way off," replied Strayne carelessly ; 
" and it's not a healthy place for white men. I went there 
once and I was very thankful to get out of the place alive." 
" More travellers' tales," laughed the Adjutant. " Tell us 
about it anyway, Strayne." But Strayne changed the 
subject and we could never get him back to it again. The 
next day I hunted diligently for Strayne's note-book. Rut 
it was nowhere to be found, and I came to the conclusion 
he had lost it in his last adventure. 
A few days afterwards we continued our advance to the 
north-east after the retreating Huns and for a time, at any 
rate, the incid9nt dropped out of my mind altogether. 
About a week after Strayne's cleath we found ourselves 
help up by a strong German rearguard. They held the crests 
of a high range of hills, and, with four Maxims in well-chosen 
and carefully-concealed positions, they made things very 
warm indeed for us. One morning before proceeding on a 
reconnoitring patrol, I was poring over my maps when I 
noticed that the high ridge before us was termed the Musutu 
and that beyond that range of hills was a second ridge marked 
IS the Mufinga Mountains. In the hurly-burly of warfare 
strayne and his dying message had been out of my mind for 
iwhile, but when I saw these words on the map I remembered 
chat they were the names employed by Strayne to denote the 
locality of the place where the elephants die. 
That day I found the. enemy in retreat and hclioed the 
news back to the Main Force. Shortly afterwards I received 
an order to co-operate with another small column that was 
making a big sweeping movement to the north-east with a 
view to " scuppering " the German rear-guard. So I pushed 
iuy company rapidly forwards and soon gained the crest of 
the hills marked " Musutu " on the map. Native scouts 
found the spoor of the German rear-guard going downwards 
from this range into an enormously deep valley flanked on 
the northern side by another high range, which I took to be the 
Mufinga Mountains. I had my orders to carry out and so I 
pressed my pursuit down into this deep declivity between the 
ranges, and as 1 went I wondered whether Strayne's weird 
story was true and whether down here in this deep cleft in the 
earth wps in reality the great Elephant mausoleum, of which 
Strayne and old Nicholson had spoken. 
In the late afternoon we reached a round deep cup-shaped 
depression ; a kind of subsidiarv declivity in the main valley. 
It was two or three miles wide. The sides were densely bushed, 
and far away down in the depths I could espy tall trees. 
Had the retiring Germans hidden themselves down in this vast 
hollow ? It looked as if they had, for about 5 o'clock a native 
, runner dashed up to me with a message from the other column 
stating that they had cut oft the Germans from their line of 
retreat, but that nothing whatever was to be seen of the rear- 
guard — was I in touch with them ? I had scarcely sent off 
i reply when a fierce rattle of musketry broke out from the 
depths below. 
" Who on earth can be scrapping down there?" said I to 
Foxgrove, my senior Sub. 
" Can't make it out at all, skipper " quoth he. " What 
are the orders now. Sir ? " 
" Well, I'm going to halt here and investigate," said I. 
"Good God, what's that?" 
From the abysmal depths below us broke out a terrifying 
trumpeting roar as though a million massive fog-horns were 
blowing concerted blasts. Then the rattle of musketry 
broke out afresh, and this time it was accentuated by the 
rat-tat-tat-tat of Maxims. We listened in amazement. As 
the African sun sank — a globe of crimson splendour — in the 
west, the firing died away, but the terrible trumpeting noise 
increased in its furious intensity. Presently a deep and 
awe inspiring silence fell upon this pit of terrors, but now and 
then -we could hear a faint and scarcely audible moan coming 
to us from the depths. The night came rushing over us and 
found Foxgrove and I still standing on the edge of the 
chasm. 
" There's something uncanny about this, Foxgrove," said I 
presently. " There may be something in Strayne's story 
after all." 
" What's that, skipper ! " asked Foxgrove. 
" Oh ! Nothing much," I replied. " But I think you and 
I'll go down and investigate when the moon gets up." 
The moon rose full and mellow a little l^ter. I called foi 
volunteers amongst the Native Scouts to accompany F'ox- 
grove and myself on our adventure. These natives were 
extraordinarily plucky fellows. Time after time they had 
led us right on to an enemy piquet or scouted a hostile position 
in broad daylight. But they absolutely refused to go down 
into the hollow. "It is the place of the ' N'Jofu* Bwana,' 
remarked their leader," and no man who goes there will live. 
We will die lighting for you, master, whenever you wish. 
But we will not disturb the elephant folk.." 
I had learned to respect native traditions and customs, and 
so Foxgrave and I started on our descent alone. As we 
clambered down into the gorge Strayne's words kept ringing 
through my cars, and I felt that strange as his tale had seemed 
we were ne,vertheless on the brink of its reality. We must 
have climbed down quite 3,000 feet, I should think, when we 
felt our feet touch a soft spongy carpet of moss. We had 
reached the bottom. - 
In the uncertain light we could see an open glade running 
through a forest of very tall trees. The glade was full of what 
at first sight appeared to be masses of gleaming white boulders. 
But as we advanced carefully along we made the startling 
discovery that these boulders were in reality pile upon pile of 
gigantic bones and tusks of ivory of all ages and sizes — pure 
white and rotten yellow! small and large. 
Stranger still was it to find corpses of Germans, White and 
Askari, rifles and equipment lying huddled together in this 
mammoth graveyard. Most of these corpses were mutilated 
beyond recognition. Some of the bodies were stamped right 
into the soft mossy ground underfoot. Others had heads or 
limbs torn from their trunks, and others appeared to have 
been smashed to pulp on the bones of the dead animals. We 
found a machine gun crushed flat like a piece of sheet iron. 
Here and there too were dark mammoth shapes — the dead 
' heroes of the elephant folk who had fallen in defence of their 
sanctuary that afternoon. 
I felt my flesh creep as I surveyed that weird and terrible 
scene. In the moonlight the forms of tlie dead men and 
animals looked spectral and ghostly. This was the place 
Strayne had spoken of. 
" A quarter of a million in ivory." I could well believe 
him. 
Neither of us spoke a word. There seemed to be something 
about that scene, something non-human and unbelievable 
and terrible that absolutely silenced speech. \\ e just gazed 
on it in awed astonishment. But our survey was not long. 
Suddenly a noise like tl.c rush of many waters broke the 
silence of the place of death. At first it seemed a long jAay 
off. But we could hear it rushing along like the noise of a 
forest fire. And — hkc a forest fire it brought an immense 
sound of faUing trees in its train. 
" Run for your life. Foxgrove," I yelled. We both bolted 
for the cliff sides and started clabbering up like madmen. 
Before we had climbed a hundred feet a mighty roar seemed 
to fairly shake the ground on which we hung. We went up the 
sides of that cliff like men possessed of devils' strength, 
Once, when about half-way from the top, we glanced back- 
wards and in the moonlight saw the giant ghosts moving 
quickly here and there amongst the piles of bleached bones 
and the heaped up German dead. We reached the top 
breathless and terrified. The natives accepted our story 
with a grave silence. But very few of the whites on our 
column credited it. 
When we joined up with the main body again the Colonel 
and the Adjutant absolutely laughed at us, and the "Clan Man" 
told the doctor to keep us under observation. Yet they were 
all vastly mystified as to the fate of the German rear-guard — 
the enemy forces that seemed to have been spirited away. 
The sudden disappearance of Brauermann's rear-guard 
remains one of the mysteries of the Central African Campaign 
to everybody e.'Jcept Foxgrove and myself, and the natives, 
and Strayne's ivory remains there in that Valley of Death 
— a piled up accumulation of treasure guarded by the elephant 
fo lk. 
♦Elephant. 
