Flight from Cleveland to Washington and on to Johannesburg - A Short Safari Adventure Among Africa's Thorny Bushveld Wildlife - page 100

though the woman was saved.
I sympathized because once at about the age of 6 or 7 years I was sitting in the left back seat
of our car with the window down watching an elephant bull on a dirt road with a high red sand
berm in the Kruger Park.
Aggressive Elephant Dribbling Urine and in Musth that Forced us Backwards for about
Five Miles
Suddenly the elephant charged right up to the car, flinging red dust into my face, its ears
flapping above me like a giant umbrella darkening the sky, and howling and trumpeting away
with a banshee sound that makes the sound track of Jurassic Park seem tame. For the next seven
or so years, during fevers, I would have nightmares of that elephant above my head and I could
not stand watching any elephants remotely near us in the Kruger Park till I was a teenager. I
still remember it vividly like it was last week. Fortunately I learnt more about elephants and
their behavior and grew to admire them, although they are hardly attractive with their small
beady eyes, big ears, and fat bodies and bellies, the latter to process the 300 to 500 pounds of
tough fibrous food they eat every day and an average for bulls of 77 liters of water in Kruger
and up to some 100 liters of water. Over 50 years of watching the elephants regularly, they
never cease to amaze me with their intelligence and close complex structural family units and
herds.