Some Kikuyu Belles
Wanderobo Guides
We left our horses and the porters under a big tree and told the latter to come on if they heard any firing; otherwise, they were to await our return. Then, with only our gunbearers and a man carrying Akeley's large camera, we circled in a wide detour until we were safely behind the elephants. The wind continued favorable, and we cautiously approached the brow of a hill near where we had last seen them. They had disappeared, but their trail was as easy to follow as an open road. Before reaching the brow of the next hill one of the gunbearers was sent up a tree to reconnoiter the country beyond.
"Hapa," he whispered, as he carefully climbed down and indicated with his hand that they were near. Again we swung in a wide circle and came over the brow of the next hill. There, four or five hundred yards away, was the herd of elephants, standing idly under the low trees that studded the opposite slope. There were between forty and fifty of them, and from the number of totos, or calves, we assumed that many of the big ones were cows. We studied the herd for some minutes, estimating the ivory and trying in vain to pick out the bulls. There is very little difference between the appearance of a cow and a bull elephant when the latter has only moderate-sized tusks. Usually the tusks of the male are heavier and thicker, but except for this distinction there is very little noticeable difference between the two. Of course, an elephant with gigantic tusks is at once known to be a bull, but if he has small tusks it is a matter of considerable guesswork.
Two Kongoni on Guard
We could not tell which ones of this herd were bulls, but assumed that there must surely be several small-sized or young bulls among them. We decided to go nearer, knowing that the elephant's eyesight is very poor, and with such a favoring wind his sense of smell was useless. It seemed amazing that they did not see us as we walked up the slope toward them. When a couple of hundred yards away we climbed a tree to study them some more. They were in three separate groups, each of which was clustered sleepy and motionless under the trees. They had ceased feeding and had evidently laid up for their midday rest, although the hour was hardly ten in the morning.
From our "observation tower" in the tree we studied the three groups as well as we could. So far as we could judge there were at least three bulls of medium size, but as we looked those three lazily moved off toward the group on the extreme left. At that time we were within about a hundred yards of the nearest group with the wind still favorable, and except for one thing we might easily have crept up through the grass to within thirty or forty yards. Directly between us and the elephants were two kongoni, one lying down and the other alert and erect.
