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We walked a transect through riverine forest, surveying elephant dung, and
part of the transect included a dry river bed. It was at the end of the
dry season, and we were surrounded by leafless trees and shrubs growing
in bare soil, cracked and baked by the sun. Here and there were small green
shoots, a result of the showers that heralded the beginning of the rains.
The elephant's footprints led across the riverbed. I tried to picture what
the area would have looked like during the rains, when the rock-hard soil
would have been mud underneath a shallow layer of water. Was the riverbed
full of water when the elephant walked across, or had the rains finished
and it was just an area of soft mud? Either way, each footprint would probably
have become a small pool, but now they were filled with the dead leaves
from last year's growth.