finally only their backs protruded above the water like boulders of stone.
"What is this? They are diving!" Stas exclaimed.
The caravan approached considerably towards the shore and finally was close by it. Stas halted it and began to stare with extraordinary astonishment now at Nell, then at the lake.
The elephants could not be seen at all; in the smooth watery pane even with the naked eye could be distinguished five spots like round red flowers, jutting above the surface and rocking with a light motion.
"They are standing on the bottom and those are the tips of their trunks," Stas said, not believing his own eyes. Then he shouted to Kali:
"Kali, did you see them?"
"Yes, master, Kali sees. Those are water-elephants,"[1] answered the young negro quietly.
"Water-elephants?"
"Kali has seen them often."
"And do they live in water?"
"During the night they go to the jungle and feed and during the day they live in the lake the same as a kiboko (hippopotamus). They do not come out until after sunset."
Stas for a long time could not recover from his surprise, and were it not that it was urgent for him to proceed on his way he would have halted the caravan until night in order to view better these singular animals. But it occurred to him that the elephants might emerge from
- ↑ Africa contains many uninvestigated secrets. Rumors of water-elephants reached the ears of travelers but were given no credence. Recently M. Le Petit, sent to Africa by the Museum of Natural History, Paris, saw water-elephants on the shores of Lake Leopold in Congo. An account of this can be found in the German periodical "Kosmos," No. 6.
