50 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



He tried to get up again, but could not manage it. 

 He was now in a kneeling position, and evidently 

 dying, and one more bullet in the back of the head 

 from Cigar's rifle snapped the cord by which he still 

 clung to life. He was a grand old bull that, for 

 many a decade before this, to him, fatal day, must 

 have wandered "monarch of all he surveyed" through 

 these pathless forests. His tusks were long, white, 

 and perfect, and proved to weigh 6i lbs. and 58 lbs. 

 respectively. As it was still early, we chopped out 

 the tusks and buried them the same day, intending 

 to pick them up on our return to the waggons. 

 That evening, for the first time, I tasted elephant's 

 heart, roasted on a forked stick over the ashes, which 

 I thought then, and still consider, to be one of the 

 greatest delicacies that an African hunter is likely to 

 enjoy. The meat from the thick part of the trunk 

 and from the cavity above the eye is also very well 

 tasted, but needs much stewing to make it tender ; 

 the foot I consider tasteless and insipid. 



Early the next day (Wednesday) we struck the" 

 spoor of a herd of elephants, and after following it 

 for many hours under a burning sun, at last came up 

 with them fanning themselves with their ears under 

 a clump of trees. Cigar again gave me the first 

 shot, and, approaching pretty close, I fired with good 

 effect, hitting a young bull, with tusks weighing about 

 20 lbs. apiece, right through the heart. He ran ofi^ 

 with the herd, but fell when he had gone about a 

 hundred yards. Loading as I ran, I got up to the 

 elephants again, and with my second bullet brought 

 down a fine cow that fell to the shot as if struck by 

 lightning. Never doubting for a moment that she 

 was dead, I ran past her, and once more getting 

 pretty close behind the herd, I gave a young bull a 



