“At last the moon came up, and with it a moaning wind, at the breath of which the silence began to whisper mysteriously.  Lonely enough in the newborn light looked the wide expanse of mountain, plain, and forest, more like some vision of a dream, some reflection from a fair world of peace beyond our ken, than the mere face of garish earth made soft with sleep.  Indeed, had it not been for the fact that I was beginning to find the log on which I sat very hard, I should have grown quite sentimental over the beautiful sight; but I will defy anybody to become sentimental when seated in the damp, on a very rough beam of wood, and half-way up a tree.  So I merely made a mental note that it was a particularly lovely night, and turned my attention to the prospect of elephants.  But no elephants came, and after waiting for another hour or so, I think that what between weariness and disgust, I must have dropped into a gentle doze.  Presently I awoke with a start.  Gobo, who was perched close to me, but as far off as the beam would allow—­for neither white man nor black like the aroma which each vows is the peculiar and disagreeable property of the other—­was faintly, very faintly clicking his forefinger against his thumb.  I knew by this signal, a very favourite one among native hunters and gun-bearers, that he must have seen or heard something.  I looked at his face, and saw that he was staring excitedly towards the dim edge of the bush beyond the deep green line of mealies.  I stared too, and listened.  Presently I heard a soft large sound as though a giant were gently stretching out his hands and pressing back the ears of standing corn.  Then came a pause, and then, out into the open majestically stalked the largest elephant I ever saw or ever shall see.  Heavens! what a monster he was; and how the moonlight gleamed upon his one splendid tusk—­for the other was missing—­as he stood among the mealies gently moving his enormous ears to and fro, and testing the wind with his trunk.  While I was still marvelling at his girth, and speculating upon the weight of that huge tusk, which I swore should be my tusk before very long, out stepped a second bull and stood beside him.  He was not quite so tall, but he seemed to me to be almost thicker-set than the first; and even in that light I could see that both his tusks were perfect.  Another pause, and the third emerged.  He was shorter than either of the others, but higher in the shoulder than No. 2; and when I tell you, as I afterwards learnt from actual measurement, that the smallest of these mighty bulls measured twelve feet one and a half inches at the shoulder, it will give you some idea of their size.  The three formed into line and stood still for a minute, the one-tusked bull gently caressing the elephant on the left with his trunk.

“Then they began to feed, walking forward and slightly to the right as they gathered great bunches of the sweet mealies and thrust them into their mouths.  All this time they were more than a hundred and twenty yards away from me (this I knew, because I had paced the distances from the tree to various points), much too far to allow of my attempting a shot at them in that uncertain light.  They fed in a semicircle, gradually drawing round towards the hut near my tree, in which the corn was stored and the old woman slept.