I had the opportunity to be
a visiting professor at the University of Pretoria and at the
University of the Western Cape in South Africa in 1996, very shortly
after the fall of the Apartheid government. Anyway, while driving
on a small
back road through the Kruger National Park, I
came upon a couple of elephants browsing on some trees. When I turned
off my car, the engine raced and this apparently alarmed one of the
elephants, who charged the car. The first two photos show the elephant
as he was bearing down on me. The third photograph shows the elephant
finally backing off after he pressed his face up against my windshield.
[Perhaps not surprisingly, the actual picture of the elephant pressing
his face against my windshield did not come out very clearly.]
If you look in the rear view mirror on the side of the car in the third
picture, you can see me fearlessly (at least that is how I now tell it)
snapping pictures of him as he walks away.