Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-19
HWoman Hunter Tells OF Tense Moments
in HeAfrIcanJ ungle-StaIkin Huge
Beasts on oot-7aking a Shot at an
animal Just T5Uel0e Feet Aavay-When
the Charge Came.
BY MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY.
BY MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY.


brushed down. and on the trees where the eie-
plants had stopped to rub the bark was still
bleeding Deeper and deeper IN we went as
softly as we could step. Before us shower OF
parasitic roots hung like thousand cords of
green velvet. We were about to pass through
this curtain In the opening that the great
bodies ahead of us had made when sound to
the right arrested US. It was deep rumble.
Our guides had fitted on ahead and as We
stood rigid, listening, they stole back to US.
The rumble sounded again. As silently as we
could we started in toward It. Then came
snort and series OF receding, squelchy steps.
Then more distant gurgle The guides nodded,
knowing their forest, and led us, not in direct
line to the last gurgle, but IN . circle to the
left, where we picked up q very deep-rutted
old trail that was freshly cut up. The moment
we stepped in it we sank to the knees, and so
we waded through the clinging sucking stuff be-
tweens walls of forest until it curved and made
a sharp descent between high banks into
sun-hooded green marsh.
It was a vivid picture, that circle of jade
green swamp and golden sun trimmed by the
dark forest. The circle of it lay to the left
and Just to the right of the path down which
we had come a narrow iSthn1us Of mud and
bushes connected with a tiny island. To the
right of the isthmus another reach OF swamp
curved away in crescent. We edged out on
this trying for a solid footing by balancing on
green c1umps, and tried to see what we could
see sudden bubblfng noise velled out in
the high grass to the right and told us that our
unseen, rumbly elephant was taking his or her
morning bath. Squelch and splash. Silence.
Then bubble like a chuclle. Then lot of
bubbles.
THE grass was high over our heads behind us
ard the mud there must be knee high, SO
there didn't seem anything to do about that
bath but what the elephant was doing. At any .
rate our attention was Immediately distracted
by an even louder noise in the swamp just
ahead of us and as we looked toward it the
grasses quivered and out on the opposite bank
climbed elephant. have seen hippo
climb out of the water looking as big as an
elephant but when that elephant clambered up
it looked as If the muddy floor Of the swamp
was rising in front of us.
Certainly 1t looked big enough to be the one
we were after, but none Of US could see the
ivory It is harder to see the tusks than you
might suppose for they are not the white,
cleaning stuff we know as ivory at home; they
yellowed and dark with earth and green
with grass stains and spray Of brush can
hide them.
Swiftly the jungle swallowed that great back
and no one had seen the tuskS. 1t might OF
course be big cow II we followed we lost the
others. AS we stood irresolute, down the bank
from which we had Just come a breaking OF
branches told Of another elephant meandertng
along toward the marsh We had tSld the
guides to lead us to elephants and they had
certainly done it-amply. We crowded farther
and farther into the grass so that II anything
came down the path we should at least have
chance to see it before 1t stepped on US.
There didn't seem to be anything to do but
stand there and see what happened. 1t seemed
to me that anything might happen, with one
elephant rambling around unseen ON the bank
ahead Of us, another sauntering along the path
behind us and third breathing down the back
Of my neck. We tried the wind and found it
blowing from across the marsh to the left,
but it shifty and any shift might stir up
something. We were just deciding to follow on
after the big-backed one we had seen and still
heard on ahead when we saw tree shaking
as seized with sudden paroxysm ON the
side we had just left. 1t rocked as in gale,
then first one branch was Topped of, then
another. That tree was stripped as swiftly and
surely as a Christmas tree in the slumS. A
hole appeared in the landscape where it had
blocked the sky.
Breathles&,y we waited for the elephant to
come in sight, hoping fervently that it was the
big tusker We could have a sure broadside shot
If from there he crossed the marsh through the
brilliant sunshine, for there was short grass in
the middle We waited, our guns on ready,
our fingers curving on the triggers.
Those moments of waiting will never be for
gotten. The sheer beauty Of that sun-hooded
marsh, keyed high like a water color, with
burning Jade and gold against the forest DARK;
the utter quietnesS Of 1t, broken only by the
nosas of the feeding elephants. 1t is strange
tElir.S to stand in the stiffness Of wood and
listSn to elephants It gives stranger feeling
than any ether experience, except perhaps the
sight of gorillas. The buffalo and the lion
may be as dangerous but they are modern
beasty, while the elephant Is the creature OF
another age . contemporary OF half-gueSsed
beasts Whole fossil bones lie now in rocks.
Since the glacier ice melted and the green
cHu.. ,he forests here had known the Tore