I found afterwards that thirty nuts were enough for one meal and would keep a man vigorous from morning until evening.
“The koola trees,” continued Ogoola, “are sometimes found like those in this place, three or four together, but oftener they are single. They are easily recognized, for they are among the big trees of the forest. We generally make our paths pass by where they are, for it is hard to carry food enough for a long journey,—the plantain gets ripe so soon and the bunches are so heavy, and the igouma is also very heavy. During the season of the koola nuts, we carry very little food with us. Our greatest enemies at that time are the boars, for they like the nuts as well as we do, and feed much upon them. Then they become very fat however, and are delicious to eat. The gorillas and other ‘men of the woods’ are also very fond of koola nuts.”
Then the men added a lot of wood to the fires and we went to sleep. Nothing happened during the night to disturb us, and the next morning we collected the nuts that had fallen during the night, cracked them, and started again for the elephant hunting-ground.
CHAPTER XXV
LOST IN THE FOREST—A HERD OF ELEPHANTS LURES ME ON—SEPARATED FROM MY HUNTERS—TWO NIGHTS ON THE GROUND AND ONE IN A TREE—FOUND AT LAST—JOY OF THE MEN.
We had not left our encampment two hours when we fell in with a great number of elephant tracks. These seemed to show that the elephants had been there during the night. Further on the tracks became so numerous that we thought several herds must have followed each other, for the jungle was trodden down in every direction. We held a council. The men said that the elephants were not very far away, and agreed to leave the path and hunt the huge beasts, meeting in the evening in the spot where we then stood. We made marks on the trees, and cut a number of boughs and broke others, in order that we might recognize the place.
Oshoria and I were to hunt together. Quabi, Ogoola, and Ngola made up the other party. We left the path and got into thick forest. I had never seen so many elephant tracks before. There must have been at least one hundred elephants together.
After two hours’ walk, we heard the tramping of the elephants ahead of us. They were breaking the branches of trees and feeding upon the leaves. Soon after we heard them trumpeting. I looked at “Bulldog,” Oshoria looked at his gun also, and we marched carefully in the direction of the elephants. I got a glimpse of several, and went towards them. Just as I was on the point of taking aim, the elephants fled, breaking and treading down the saplings that were in their way. I followed the track they had left behind them, in the hope of seeing them again. Ere long I spied a bull elephant, and seven cows. These fled also. I chased them but was not able to overtake them.
Without my being aware of it, time had passed more quickly than I thought. It was getting late, and I retraced my steps towards the place where we had agreed to meet. I had lost sight of Oshoria. After a while I found I did not recognize some of the trees I had especially noticed, and did not see the marks we had made when following the elephants. I began to suspect that I was walking in a wrong direction. I had not met two ebony trees which had particularly attracted my attention on account of their size. Surely I had gone the wrong way. I shouted after Oshoria, but received no answer back.
Finally I came to a path which I thought was the one upon which we had agreed to meet, but I could not tell whether I was beyond or lower down than our place of meeting. I walked on for a while to see if I could recognize some of the trees, but I could not.