it was the worst place in the world to
encounter an elephant. And I prayed that we might get into more open
forest before we came up with the ones we were trailing. You can't
imagine how earnestly we all joined in that prayer.

It was at this unpropitious moment that we heard--startlingly near--the
sharp crash of a tusk against a tree somewhere just ahead. It was a most
unwelcome sound. There was no way of determining where the elephant was,
for we were hemmed in by solid walls of bush and could not have seen an
elephant ten feet on either side of the narrow trail. We also didn't
know whether he was coming or going or whether he was on our trail or
some other one of the maze of trails.

We quickly prepared for the worst. With our three heavy guns we crouched
in the trail, waiting for the huge bulk of an elephant to loom up before
us. Then came another thunderous crash to our right--and it seemed
scarcely fifty yards away. Then a shrill squeal of a startled elephant
off to our left and still another to the rear. Some elephants had
evidently just caught our scent, and if the rest of the elephants became
alarmed and started a stampede through the bush the situation would
become extremely irksome for a man of quiet-loving tendencies. The
thought of elephants charging down those narrow trails, perhaps from two
directions at once, was one that started a copious flow of cold
perspiration. We waited for several years of intense apprehension. There
was absolute silence. The elephants also were evidently awaiting further
developments.

[Photograph: A Clearing in the Forest]

[Photograph: A Kikuyu "Cotillion"]

[Photograph: Kikuyu Women Flailing Grain]

Then we edged slowly onward along the trail, approaching each turning
with extreme caution and then edging on to the next. Somewhere ahead and
on two sides of us there were real, live, wild elephants that probably
were not in a mood to welcome visitors from Chicago. How near they were
we didn't know--except that the sounds had come from very near,
certainly not more than a hundred yards--and we hoped that we might go
safely forward to where the bush would be thin enough to allow us to see
our surroundings. But there was no clearing. Several times a crash of
underbrush either ahead or to one side brought us to anxious attention
with fingers at the trigger guards. At last, after what seemed to be
hours of nervous tension, we came to a crossing of trails, down which we
could se