I immediately put my old Panama hat flat on my head and walked in a stooping posture toward the huge monster, who was far off. I approached nearer and nearer, when lo! the big beast began to move toward me. A feeling of awe crept over me; there was not a hill near to hide myself; there was not a tree for me to climb upon; I thought how small I looked by the side of this, the largest of the animals of the forest! Did the elephant see me? Did he come to meet me and attack me? [Illustration: LYING LOW FOR ELEPHANTS.] [Sidenote: _AN UGLY VISITOR._] Such were the questions that came at once to my mind. My courage began to quail. I was, as I said, quite alone; I had left all my men in the camp: these men were the slaves of some of my Mpongwes’ friends, and they were, I knew, fast asleep; in case of accident I had no one to come to the rescue. At that time I was a young lad, and had no confidence in myself, and to fight an elephant which looked so big, seemed to me perfectly impossible. But very soon I got accustomed to face danger, and loved to hunt elephants. I was no more afraid of them. Well, the elephant kept still coming toward me as I lay flat on the ground. At last he stopped, and then I saw him raise his trunk; my heart began to beat terribly, for I thought he was coming down to charge upon me. Then he sniffed two or three times and suddenly ran away. I had shouldered my gun, resolved at any rate to try to kill him instead of being trampled down by his huge feet. The sound of every one of his steps could be heard distinctly, as he ran away from me, and he was soon out of sight. He had gone into the forest, and nature fell back into its accustomed stillness. Now and then the voice of a frog resounded strangely from the prairie. Suddenly a cloud came over the moon, and it grew almost dark; the wind blew strongly, for it was in the dry season and was quite chilly. After wandering a while I came at last to a large ant-hill and sheltered myself there, thinking at the same time that it would be a splendid place to hide and look for game. How strange my shadow appeared by the side of that ant-hill, when the moon shone again!