That killed
by the "Baby" was nine feet six inches from the forefoot to the
shoulder, the other was eight feet three inches. It is a common
mistake that twice the circumference of the foot is the height of
an elephant; there is no such rule that can be depended upon, as
their feet vary in size without any relative proportion to the
height of the animal.
* They are now in England at Mr. Reilly's, No. 215, Oxford
Street, having accompanied me throughout my expedition,
and they have never been out of order.
A most interesting fact had occurred: when I found the larger
elephant, killed by the "Baby," I noticed an old wound unhealed
and full of matter in the front of the left shoulder; the bowels
were shot through, and were green in various places. Florian
suggested that it must be an elephant that I had wounded at Wat
el Negur; we tracked the course of the bullet most carefully,
until we at length discovered my unmistakeable bullet of
quicksilver and lead, almost uninjured, in the fleshy part of the
thigh, imbedded in an unhealed wound. Thus, by a curious chance,
upon my first interview with African elephants by daylight, I had
killed the identical elephant that I had wounded at Wat el Negur
forty-three days ago in the dhurra plantation, twenty-eight miles
distant! Both these elephants were females. It was the custom of
these active creatures to invade the dhurra fields from this
great distance, and to return to these almost impenetrable thorny
jungles, where they were safe from the attack of the aggageers,
but not from the rifles.
On our return to camp, the rejoicings were great; the women
yelled as usual, and I delighted the Hamrans by dividing the
meat, and presenting them with the hides for shields. I gave Abou
Do, and all the hunters, and my camel drivers, large quantities
of fat; and I found that I was accredited as a brother hunter by
the knights of the sword, who acknowledged that their weapons
were useless in the thick jungles of Tooleet, the name of the
place where we had killed the elephants.
CHAPTER XII.
OLD NEPTUNE JOINS THE PARTY.
WE started from Geera, on the 23d of December, with our party
complete. The Hamran sword-hunters were Abou Do, Jali, and
Suleiman. My chief tracker was Taher Noor, who, although a good
hunter, was not a professional aggahr, and I was accompanied by
the father of Abou Do, who was a renowned "howarti," or harpooner
of hippopotami. This magnificent old man might have been Neptune
himself; he stood about six feet two, and his grizzled locks hung
upon his shoulders in thick and massive curls, while his deep
bronze features could not have been excelled in beauty of
outline.
