"They are standing on the bottom and those are the tips of their trunks," Stas said, not believing his own eyes. Then he shouted to Kali:
"Kali, did you see them?"
"Yes, master, Kali sees. Those are water-elephants,"* [* Africa contains many uninvestigated secrets. Rumors of water-elephants reached the ears of travelers but were given no credence. Recently M. Le Petit, sent to Africa by the Museum of Natural History, Paris, saw water-elephants on the shores of Lake Leopold in Congo. An account of this can be found in the German periodical "Kosmos," No. 6.] answered the young negro quietly.
"Water-elephants?"
"Kali has seen them often."
"And do they live in water?"
"During the night they go to the jungle and feed and during the day they live in the lake the same as a kiboko (hippopotamus). They do not come out until after sunset."
Stas for a long time could not recover from his surprise, and were it not that it was urgent for him to proceed on his way he would have halted the caravan until night in order to view better these singular animals. But it occurred to him that the elephants might emerge from the water on the opposite side, and even if they came out nearer it would be difficult to observe them closely in the dusk.
He gave the signal for the departure, but on the road said to Nell:
"Well! We have seen something which the eyes of no European have ever seen. And do you know what I think?—that if we reach the ocean safely nobody will believe us when I tell them that there are water-elephants in Africa."