on to the sharpened
stakes at the bottom. Some of the traps were so cleverly concealed that
only a Wanderobo could detect them. In places the forest was like the
stately aisles of a great shadowy cathedral, with giant cedars and
camphor-wood trees rising in towering columns high above where the
graceful festoons of liana and moss imparted an imposing scene of
vastness and tropical beauty. In such places the ground was clean and
springy to the footfall and the impression of a splendid solitude was
such as one feels in a great deserted cathedral. At times we crossed
matted and snaky-looking little streams that trickled through the
decaying vegetation, where the feet of countless elephants had worn deep
holes far down in the mud. Then, after long and circuitous marching, we
would find ourselves traversing spots where we had been an hour before.

[Drawing: _Elephant Pits_]

The elephant apparently moves about without much definition of purpose,
at least when he is idling away his time, and the trail we were
following led in all directions like a mystic maze. At this time I was
hopelessly lost, and if left alone could probably never have found my
way out again. So we quickened our steps lest the guides should get too
far ahead of us. In those cool depths of the forest, into which only
occasional shafts of sunlight filtered, the air was cold and damp, so
much so that even the old Wanderobo got cold. It made me cold to look at
his thin, old bare legs, but then I suppose his legs were as much
accustomed to exposure as my hands were, and it's all a matter of
getting used to it.

Our porters, especially those that were most heavily loaded, were
falling behind and there was grave danger of losing them. In fact, a
little later we did lose them. The trail became fresher and, to my
dismay, led downward again and into that hopeless mass of underbrush
which at this point extended some distance into the lower levels of the
forest. We could not see in any direction more than twenty-five
feet--except above. If our lives had depended on it we could not have
penetrated the dense matted barriers of vegetation on each side of the
narrow trail. The bare thought of meeting an elephant in such a place
sent a cold chill down the back. If he happened to be coming toward us
our only hope was in killing him before he could charge twenty-five
feet, and, if we did kill him, to avoid being crushed by his body as it
plunged forward. Without question