52 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



her fall. She must have been struck too high, and 

 only paralysed for a short time ; at any rate she 

 made good her escape, leaving about 6 lbs. of ivory 

 as a souvenir. On Thursday, after many hours' 

 tracking, we again came up with a herd of elephants. 

 This was an unlucky day with me, for although the 

 elephant I attacked left the herd after receiving my 

 first bullet, he yet ran clean away and got off. 



It is fearfully hard work walking for many hours 

 on elephant spoor under a burning sun, carrying 

 one's own gun and heavy ammunition, and having 

 to end with a run. Cigar killed three elephants, all 

 young bulls ; at night two parties of lions came 

 down to the carcases, near which we were sleeping, 

 and together with the hyaenas made night hideous 

 with their noisy revels. 



On Friday, after chopping out the tusks, we 

 walked back to our camp near the eight animals shot 

 on Wednesday, where Cigar had left two of his 

 Kafirs to chop out the tusks, all sixteen of which we 

 found lying in a row on the ground. About this 

 part of the country there were (at that time) many 

 rhinoceroses, both of the square-mouthed and pre- 

 hensile-lipped species. The day before I had counted 

 eight of them, which we passed during our walk from 

 camp to camp. Many kinds of smaller game were 

 also plentiful, the noble-looking sable antelope being 

 particularly abundant. Elands, roan antelopes, koo- 

 doos, water-bucks, reed-bucks, impalas, tsessebes, 

 zebras, buffaloes, duikers, and steinbucks, were also 

 met with daily ; and in the river Umniati, only a 

 few miles from where we were hunting, Cigar said 

 there were a good many hippopotami. On Saturday 

 we again took a round in search of elephants, and 

 having found no fresh spoor by mid-day, we lay down 



