realized my presence the rumbling ceased, as it always does when they are suspicious, and she left the clump of growth she was in without my hearing a sound.
But going back to the big herd. From the time I had seen the first elephant until the last of them disappeared in the forest it had been perhaps fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes in which to see the sight of a lifetime, a thing to go to Africa a dozen times to get one glimpse of. But what did I learn about the habits of the elephant in that fifteen minutes? A little perhaps but not much. It takes a long time and much patience to get at all intimate with old Tembo, as the Swahilis call him, on his native soil.
After the herd disappeared in the forest I watched for ten or fifteen minutes and heard the squeal of the elephants and the noise of the monkeys again. Their suspicions were over. I followed into the forest where the trails showed me that they had broken up into small bands. I followed along on the trail of one of these bands until I got a glimpse of an elephant about fifty yards ahead of me in the trail. You don't see a whole elephant in the forest. What you do see is just a glimpse of hide or tusk or trunk through the trees. And if you want to get this glimpse without disturbing him you must do your glimpsing from down the wind.
There was a little open space ahead of the group I was following. I worked around until I got to a place where I could see them as they passed through this open space. They were moving along slowly,
