Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1917-12-06
AN INCIDENT OF THE CENTRAL AFRICAN CAMPAIGN.

The bueles blared out the impressive
notes oi the Last Post and then we
tralnped sorrowfullN away. 1t seemed
To me those clarion calls had awakened
a thousand echoes in the grim old
mountains. and as | wended my way
back 10 camp they kept repeating in
my ears The place where the ele-
pnants dc The place where the ele-
phants die"
Here was poor Strayne-a veritable
elephant among men Che stood 8 feet 4
IN his socksl. dcad-and with him per
uaps MS secret. But | had promised TO
u" what ! could. Then it all came sud
utniN back 70 me. I had heard those
words The place where the elephants
ole. on Two previous occasions.
me ilrst time was at karonga be
fpre our adVance began. / had heard
them there. used by old Nicholson, who
was d 4talnt old fossil of a trader-who
iltd wandered all oVer Africa from Fer
nahdo 70 to Cinde and who had ac-
cunl'iated a most wonderful fund of
naliNe foiA lore. fables and traditions.
me adJutant was with me at the line
and We questioned Nicholson about this
supposed mausoleum of the mann
moths.
We'll said he, u don't know
whether there's much in it or not. but
mats the native yarn all over Africa.
lheA say mat elephants always go to
~ - wv NlS u = Il vast SoIl "
Jumbo cemetery, j suppose. The yarn
of the niegers is that his graveyard is
somewhere up north and that only two
or three men have ever seen it, and
then only AT great risk of their lives,
because the place is held sacred by the
elephant clan and the animals are
sworn To Kill all i%ntruders."
The adjutant laughed: That's a
good fairy tale. Nicholson" said he.
The old man looked serious. well,
p'raps p'raps it is. But it's strange I've
never met anybody yet who ever saw
Il dead elephant"
The Record Ivory Tusks.
On the second occasion l had heard
Strayne himself employ these queer
words. ! recollected that just after the
advance started we had been talking of
record ivory tusks one evening. The
"djutant after awhile appealed to
Strayne on The subject n the elephant
hunter intelligence officer had replied:
The biggest tusks l ever saw We're in
the place where the elephants die. There
were two of them hat beat that pair
got by Powell-Cotton in the Lado by
feet"
Where did YOU see them?' interject-
ed the adjutant sharply.
oh! its a long way off, replied
Strayne carelessly: IAN it's not a
healthy place for white men. | went
there once and l was very thankful to
get out of the place alive
More travellers tales laughed the
adJutant. Tell us about it anyway,
Strayne. But Strayne changed the
subject and we GOULD never get him
back to it again. The next day hunt
ed diligently for S%trayne's notebook.
But 1t was nowhere to be found, and |
came TO the conclusion he had lost it in
his last adventure.
A few days afterwards we continued
our advance to the northeast after the
retreating Huns and for a time, at any
rate, the incident dropped out Of my
mind altogether.
Abou a week after Strayne's death
we found ourselves held up by a strong
German r%earguard. They held the
crests of a high range of hills, and,
carefully concealed positions, they made
things very warm indeed for us. One
er high range. which 1 took to be the
Mufinga mountains. I had my orders
to carry out and SO l pressed my pur-
suit down into this deep declivity be-
tween the ranges, and as L went l Won
dered whether Strayne's weird story
was true and whether down here in his
deep cleft in the earth was in reality
the great elephant mauSoleum, of which
Strayne n old Nicholson had spoken.
In the late afternoon we reached a
round deep cup-shaped depression: a
kind of subsidiary declivity in the main
valley. 1t was two or three miles wide.
The sides We're densely pushed, and far
away down in the depths could espy
tall trees. Had the retiring Germans
hidden themselves down in this vast
hollow? 1t looked as if they had. for
about s O'clock a native runnor dashed
up to me with a message from the other
column stating that they had cut off
employed by Strayne to denote the To-