ot linger, however, but took his friends at the same quick
pace until they came to a mighty elephant that was much larger than any
other, and his ivories were gleaming white and curled up, and
exceedingly long. Before him Dudu and Salimba were told by their friend
to descend and salaam, and he told his lord how he had found them lost
in the woods, and how for the sake of the kindly words of the woman he
had befriended them, and assisted them to the city of his tribe. When
the King Elephant heard all this he was much pleased, and said to Dudu
and Salimba that they were welcome to his city, and how they should not
want for anything, as long as they would be pleased to stay with them,
but as for the hunters who had dared to chase them, he would give orders
at once. Accordingly he gave a signal, and ten active young elephants
dashed out of the city, and in a short time not one of the hunters was
left alive, though one of them had leaped into the river, thinking that
he could escape in that manner. But then you know that an elephant is
as much at home in a river, as a Kiboko [a hippopotamus], so that the
last man was soon caught and was drowned.

Dudu and Salimba, however, on account of Salimba's kind heart in
preventing her husband wounding the elephant, were made free of the
place, and their friend took them with him to many families, and the big
pa's and ma's told their little babies all about them and their habits,
and said that, though most of the human kind were very stupid and
wicked, Dudu and Salimba were very good, and putting their trunks into
their ears they whispered that Salimba was the better of the two. Then
the little elephants gathered about them and trotted by their side and
around them and diverted them with their antics, their races, their
wrestlings, and other trials of strength, but when they became familiar
and somewhat rude in their rough play, their elephant friend would
admonish them, and if that did not suffice, he would switch them
soundly.

The City of the Elephants was a spacious and well-trodden glade in the
midst of a thick forest, and as it was entered one saw how wisely the
elephant families had arranged their manner of life. For without, the
trees stood as thick as water-reeds, and the bush or underwood was like
an old hedge of milkweed knitted together by thorny vines and snaky
climbers into which the human hunter might not even poke his nose
without hurt. Well, the burly elephants