CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
A ROGUE ELEPHANT.
The elephant was standing in a grove of _mokhala_ trees.

These, unlike the humbler mimosas, have tall naked stems, with heads of thick foliage, in form resembling an umbrella or parasol.

Their pinnate leaves of delicate green are the favourite food of the giraffe, hence their botanical appellation of _Acacia giraffae_; and hence also their common name among the Dutch hunters of "cameel-doorns" (camel-thorns).
The tall giraffe, with his prehensile lip, raised nearly twenty-feet in the air, can browse upon these trees without difficulty.

Not so the elephant, whose trunk cannot reach so high; and the latter would often have to imitate the fox in the fable, were he not possessed of a means whereby he can bring the tempting morsel within reach--that is, simply by breaking down the tree.

This his vast strength enables him to do, unless when the trunk happens to be one of the largest of its kind.
When the eyes of our hunters first rested upon the elephant, he was standing by the head of a prostrate mokhala, which he had just broken off near the root.