They got to the opposite bank safely; but, as they were landing, Dudu and Salimba noticed that their pursuers had discovered a canoe, and that they were pulling hard after them. But the Elephant soon after landing came to a broad path smoothed by much travel, over which he took them at a quick pace, so fast, indeed, that the pursuers had to run to be able to keep up with them. Dudu, every now and then let fly an arrow at the hunters, which kept them at a safe distance.
Towards night they came to the City of the Elephants, which was very large and fit to shelter such a multitude as they now saw. Their elephant did not 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 had, by much uprooting, created deep hollows, or recesses, wherein a family of two and more might snugly rest, and not even a dart of sunshine might reach them. Round about the great glade the dark leafy arches ran, and Dudu and his wife saw that the elephant families were numerous—for by one sweeping look they could tell that there were more elephants than there are human beings in a goodly village. In some of the recesses there was a row of six and more elephants; in another the parents stood head to head, and their children, big and little, clung close to their parents’ sides; in another a family stood with heads turned towards the entrance, and so on all around—while under a big tree in the middle there was quite a gathering of big fellows, as though they were holding a serious palaver; under another tree one seemed to be on the outlook; another paced slowly from side to side; another plucked at this branch or at that; another appeared to be heaving a tree, or sharpening a blunted ivory; others seemed appointed to uproot the sprouts, lest the glade might become choked with underwood. Near the entrance on both sides were a brave company of them, faces turned outward, swinging their trunks, napping their ears, rubbing against each other, or who with pate against pate seemed to be drowsily considering something. There was a continual coming in and a going out, singly, or in small companies. The roads that ran through the glade were like a network, clean and smooth, while that which went towards the king’s place was so wide that twenty men might walk abreast. At the far end the king stood under his own tree, with his family under the arches behind him.
This was the City of the Elephants as Dudu and Salimba saw it. I ought to say that the outlets of it were many. One went straight through the woods in a line up river, at the other end it ran in a line following the river downward; one went to a lakelet, where juicy plants and reeds throve like corn in a man’s fields, and where the elephants rejoiced in its cool water, and washed themselves and infants; another went to an ancient clearing where the plantain and manioc grew wild, and wherein more than two human tribes might find food for countless seasons.
Then said their friend to Dudu and Salimba—“Now that I have shown you our manner of life, it is for you to ease your longing for awhile and rest with us. When you yearn for home, go tell our king, and he will send you with credit to your kindred.”
Then Dudu and his wife resolved to stay, and eat, and they stayed a whole season, not only unhurt, but tenderly cared for, with never a hungry hour or uneasy night. But at last Salimba’s heart remembered her children, and kinfolk, and her own warm house and village pleasures, and on hinting of these memories to her husband, he said that after all there was no place like Bungandu. He remembered his long pipe, and the talk-house, the stool-making, shaft-polishing, bow-fitting, and the little tinkering jobs, the wine-trough, and the merry drinking bouts, and he wept softly as he thought of them.
They thus agreed that it was time for them to travel homeward, and together they sought the elephant king, and frankly told him of their state.
“My friends,” he replied, “be no longer sad, but haste to depart. With the morning’s dawn guides shall take you to Bungandu with such gifts as shall make you welcome to your folk. And when you come to them, say to them that the elephant king desires lasting peace and friendship with them. On our side we shall not injure their plantations, neither a plantain, nor a manioc root belonging to them; and on your side dig no pits for our unwary youngsters, nor hang the barbed iron aloft, nor plant the poisoned stake in the path, so we shall escape hurt and be unprovoked.” And Dudu put his hand on the king’s trunk as the pledge of good faith.