Evening star., 1934-07-22

ferent types, two cub lions, chetah,
several pigmy antelope, two or three
mongooses and a large porcupine also
sitting about in this large back yard,
enjoying the busy scene!
The real pets of this back yard were
''Wah," an ape, a Sykes monkey who
was always trying to pick scrap with
anybody who came around, but espe-
eially with tbs timid "Wah" and Laura"
the lion cub, who ran loose about the
yard most of the time. These three,
and the funny little mongoose we called
"Rikky Tikky," were our close COM
panions all the, time; all but Laura"
went with us on every trip and insisted
upon sharing the best titbits of the
table.
THE safari was finally ready and started
- of ahead of us. Makindu turned out
to be a railroad station with a few
whitewashed, empty houses about.
Imagine going out to hunt elephant in
the jungle, and suddenly finding your
self quartered in a modern house on a
railroad track! But elephants were
never even sighted; we never saw
fresh track all the time we were there.
Looking back, one part of this trip seems
amuSing-we used to converse at night
I'm whispers, for fear the elephants might
hear.
Our next attempt for elephant was
mp on the Tana River, which, unlike
Makindu, was the real jungle life. Here
we were surrounded by wild life of all
kinds. Hunting elephants is pains
taking job. After locating a herd with
the help of two or three trackers native
10 that particular country, we would
slowly walk up until we were actually
among them, peering through and
around bush to see which one was the
best specimen. 1 cannot describe adev
quately my sensations when was stand
ing perhaps 80 yards from herd of IL
or more elephants and discussing, or
practically measuring, each individual
one. All I wanted was to get out of
there and leave the elephant to his own
sweet life, If he would do the same for
MS. We were SO close that we could
actually see their little, beady eyes
blinking.
Finally decision would be reached
and Klein would say, Give it to him!"
For few staggering seconds after the
shot was fired, it felt as though hell had
broken loose. First, the great fall of
the poor creature. and then the crash
ing of the rest of the herd as they tore
away through the forest. We always
expected them to come our way and
stood ready for anything to happen.
Once, to our horror, they came-but
when the leader was taken the others
turned and made it possible for us to
tell the story.
"A FTER three weeks of constantly hunt
ing elephants, we were glad to have
the strain over. Our admiration for
them had certainly increased.
Back to Nairobi by air. We managed
10 miss our mark by 40 miles, but with
the help of the one and only railroad,
we crept in without much gas to spare.
This particular flight was a miScalcu-
sation from start to finish. Beginning
with an early attempt to get a rare
seser kudu, which missed badly, then
getting one of our trucks stuck in the
river, which caused two or three hours
delay; then finally starting in the plane,
only to find the air very rough and the
black cook, or "peShi," violently ill every
IS minutes. Perhaps the worst feature
of all was that we had breakfaSted at
q am. and did not get another thing to
eat until pm.
What fun it was to get back to a real
houSe-but soon we were off again on