Here is a story from Bigobo that some dear friends shared with me.

Johnny and Evelyn were new--newly married and new missionaries at the Bigobo Mission Station in the Belgian Congo. They had only been at the mission for about five month's when some of the local natives came to the mission with a report that elephants had raided their cotton gardens.

The elephants loved the cotton plants and would completely strip the plants of all leaves and twigs and leave just a little stalk maybe six or seven inches tall. When a sizable herd of elephants came into an area, it could bring economic ruin to the natives. Somehow the elephants had to be driven away. The only way the natives knew of to drive the elephants away was to hunt and kill several of the elephants. This would make the rest of the herd move on to find another area where they would not be troubled.

The natives knew that the senior missionary at Bigobo Mission, Leonard Robinson, had several guns and that he would use them if the need arose. They felt this was a need so they came to the mission to ask Missionary Robinson if he would come help them by hunting the elephants.

Leonard was happy to help the natives. He knew what the cotton crops meant to the natives and he knew the destruction that could be caused by such a herd of elephants. So he agreed to go on the hunt. He asked Johnny and Evelyn if they would like to go along.

The new missionaries jumped at the opportunity to go on such an exciting expedition. It wasn't long before they were all dressed out in they best "elephant hunting" clothes. Evelyn borrowed a pair of Johnny's slacks and got a piece of rope to slip through the belt loops so she could tie it around her waist and keep the slacks up.

The hunting party, consisting of Leonard Robinson, a native hunter, Johnny and Evelyn, was soon loaded into Leonard's Chevy van along with the guns and ammunition. After driving about 45 minutes from the mission they unloaded from the van and went on by foot to the place where the elephants were last seen.

Elephants have exceptional hearing and smelling capabilities. Leonard told everyone that they must be absolutely quite as they walked. Every once in a while Leonard would stop and take a piece of cotton from his pocket he would pull off a very small tuft, hold it up and let it fall. Then he would watch which way the wind would blow it. He wanted to make sure that he was approaching the elephants from downwind.

After about three hours they came to a small rise and looked into the valley below. There were the elephants walking through the elephant grass. The grass was so tall that all they could see of the elephants was their shoulders. Leonard tested the wind again. It was perfect. The wind was coming from the elephants toward them.

Leonard took one of his guns and handed it to Johnny. It was the first gun that Johnny had ever held. Leonard showed him how to disengage the safety and admonished him that if trouble came he was to flip the safety and fire to protect himself and Evelyn.

Carefully now they went down into the valley. They were now walking where the elephants had walked through the tall grass and had formed semi tunnels in the grass as they pushed through it. It was a little spooky walking through these tunnels and not knowing what was ahead. Leonard and the native hunter were slightly ahead, Johnny and Evelyn were following as best they could. It was hard going, trying to be very quiet and watch for the elephants, wondering which of the many "tunnels" in the grass they should take.

Suddenly, Leonard and the African hunter started to run forward zigging and zagging through the elephant trails. As Johnny and Evelyn ran to try to keep up they began to hear a rumble and to feel the ground shake. They didn't realize it at the time but the wind had changed directions and the elephants had caught the scent of man. They were stampeding and headed right toward the hunting party.

When Leonard came out of the grass in an area where he could see the first of the stampeding herd he raised his gun. Pow, Pow, Pow, POW!. Four shots and the first four elephants fell to the ground right in front of Leonard. He motioned for the rest to follow and ran up close to the fallen elephants. The rest of the herd parted around the fallen four and kept going. Johnny found a small bush that he and Evelyn hid behind, gun at the ready, as the herd raced past and reformed into a mass of elephant feet trampling everything in their way. Later they discovered that Johnny had forgotten to disengage the safety on the gun, but he was "ready."

Leonard estimated that the herd numbered about 100 elephants. They all thundered past just a few feet from where the four "hunters" crouched, protected from the stampede by the bodies the four elephants that Leonard had dropped.

Elephant hunting is hard work. After the excitement had past and the hunters were sure that the four elephants were indeed dead and not just stunned, they sliced up a couple of pineapples they had brought along. Then each hunter picked out a dead elephant and climbed up onto it and ate his half of a pineapple.