feeding; though in
remote and quiet districts they also feed by day--so that it is probable
that most of their nocturnal activity is the result of their dread of
their watchful enemy, man.

Swartboy communicated these facts, as the hunters all together followed
upon the spoor.

The traces of the elephant were now of a different character, from what
they had been before arriving at the ant-hill. He had been browsing as
he went. His nap had brought a return of appetite; and the wait-a-bit
thorns showed the marks of his prehensile trunk. Here and there branches
were broken off, stripped clean of their leaves, and the ligneous parts
left upon the ground. In several places whole trees were torn up by
their roots, and those, too, of considerable size. This the elephant
sometimes does to get at their foliage, which upon such trees grows
beyond the reach of his proboscis. By prostrating them of course he gets
their whole frondage within easy distance of his elastic nose, and can
strip it off at pleasure.

At times, however, he tears up a tree to make a meal of its roots--as
there are several species with sweet juicy roots, of which the elephant
is extremely fond. These he drags out of the ground with his trunk,
having first loosened them with his tusks, used as crowbars. At times he
fails to effect his purpose; and it is only when the ground is loose or
wet, as after great rains, that he can uproot the larger kinds of
mimosas. Sometimes he is capricious; and, after drawing a tree from the
ground, he carries it many yards along with him, flings it to the
ground, root upwards, and then leaves it, after taking a single
mouthful. Destructive to the forest is the passage of a troop of
elephants!

Small trees he can tear up with his trunk alone, but to the larger ones
he applies the more powerful leverage of his tusks. These he inserts
under the roots, imbedded as they usually are in loose sandy earth, and
then, with a quick jerk, he tosses roots, trunk, and branches, high into
the air,--a wonderful exhibition of gigantic power.

The hunters saw all these proofs of it, as they followed the spoor. The
traces of the elephant's strength were visible all along the route.

It was enough to beget fear and awe, and none of them were free from
such feelings. With so much disposition to commit havoc and ruin in his
moments of quietude, what would such a creature be in the hour of
excitement and anger? No wonder there was fear in the h