It will be recognized that the construction of these snares calls for a degree of skill and experience to which few Europeans can attain. Sometimes the pits were so cunningly dug that it was almost impossible to detect their presence and we were in serious danger of falling in ourselves. As a rule the natives indicate the proximity of a trap by some signal such as a broken branch, a spear driven into a tree, or a stalk twisted in a certain manner; but, of course, the purport of these signs is known only to the initiated, and at the beginning of our expedition we had much more to fear from the tiger-traps than from the chances of an encounter with the beast for which they were intended.
It must not be imagined that the Moï confine themselves to the destruction of wild beasts only, or merely those which threaten their safety. Elephants are slaughtered ruthlessly for the sake of their ivory. The elephants haunt the damp and sandy regions of this country. During the dry season from November to March herds consisting of anything from ten to twenty beasts make their way to the forests both for shelter from the heat and for the pools which have not yet dried up. It is generally at watering-time that the creature makes itself heard with loud trumpetings which are audible at an immense distance and betray its presence to its human enemy. When the elephant is undisturbed its progress is sedate and leisurely and it stops every now and then to pluck a branch either for recreation or to serve as a fly-swish.
It is this last habit, well known to the native hunter, which betrays it and leads to its downfall. The first time I took part in an elephant-hunt I was amazed to see that the native who was guiding me kept his eyes fixed upwards all the time. I should have thought it was obvious that we needed no other guide than the enormous footprints left by the unwieldy beasts, and told him so. I was not long left in error. Without relaxing his efforts he soon showed me that these tracks were very unreliable, that they frequently pointed different ways, cut across each other, and sometimes, in fact, disappeared altogether. He told me also that the evacuations of the creature are liable to be misleading unless quite fresh, still viscous, and unaffected by insects. A trail in a forest must then be sought not on the ground but in the branches of the trees. It is by the broken branches, the appearance of the severed ends, and the consistency of the gum which escapes, that the experienced hunter can deduce the more or less recent passage of a herd.