Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/59

 As a consequence an elephant may sink four feet into a swamp but the minute he begins to lift his legs, his feet will contract and come out of the hole they have made without suction. The elephant's leg, being practically a perpendicular shaft, requires less muscular effort for him to stand than it does for ordinary animals. This is one of the reasons why he can go for a century without lying down.

A country that elephants have long inhabited takes on some of the particular interest of the animals themselves. I believe that before the white man came to East Africa the elephant was nearly as much a plains animal as a forest animal, but he now tends to stay in the forests where the risk is not so great. On the plains there are no elephant paths now, if there ever were, for in open country elephants do not go in single file. But in the forests there are elephant paths everywhere. In fact, if it were not for the elephant paths travel in the forest would be almost impossible, and above the forests in the bamboo country this is equally true. One travels practically all the time on their trails and they go everywhere except in the tree ferns. Tree fern patches are not very extensive, but I have never seen an elephant track or an elephant in them. The elephants are constantly changing the paths for various reasons; among others, because the natives are in the habit of digging elephant pits in the trails. But there are some trails that have evidently been used for centuries. One time we had followed a band of elephants on the Aberdare Plateau and had devilled them until they