58 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



without even salt, and upon three several occasions 

 went two whole days without food, for the game, 

 which had been very plentiful before the rains com- 

 menced, seemed now to have left this part of the 

 country. The rainy season too had set in in real 

 earnest, and we were constantly exposed to heavy 

 downpours of rain. Every evening we made a rough 

 sort of shed, but the heavy tropical rain came through 

 our hastily-constructed shelter, and flooded the 

 ground beneath us in such a way that we usually got 

 wet completely through. During this trip I shot 

 three more elephants, one of them a fine bull with 

 tusks weighing 50 lbs. apiece. The day I shot this 

 elephant Cigar had killed two others. We had 

 followed their spoor nearly all day, and it was late 

 when we came up with them. I had a very long 

 tiring run after mine, and almost lost him. He 

 made one very determined charge, trumpeting loudly, 

 but I dodged round a bush and he lost sight of me, 

 and at last went through the Umniati river, which 

 was running like a mill-race. This was my last 

 chance. I was some way behind him and very 

 fagged when he went down the bank, but I managed 

 to make a spurt and reached the river's edge just as 

 he was getting out on the opposite side. The bank 

 was here several feet high ; the tired and wounded 

 beast had got his front feet on to the top, his hind 

 legs being still in the water, so that his back was on a 

 slope of 45 degrees, when, steadying myself, I fired 

 into his burly carcase ; he sank on to his hind- 

 quarters, then heeled right over backwards, and 

 falling with a tremendous splash right into the river, 

 never stirred again. Only a small piece of his 

 rounded side, and the point of one tusk, were visible 

 above the water, so that the next day we had to cut 



