126 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



elephant call close to us, — not the loud scream which 

 these animals give when angry, but something very 

 much resembling the cry of a baboon ; so like, indeed, 

 that many of our Kafirs, who had not much experience 

 of these animals, said it was one. All our Bushmen, 

 however, declared it at once to have been an elephant, 

 so we immediately called a halt, and, putting down all 

 our traps, entered the bush to look for spoor. At a 

 short distance from the edge, the jungle became ex- 

 ceedingly dense, though not thorny, and about twenty 

 feet high. We now advanced slowly and cautiously, 

 and had not proceeded a hundred yards when we came 

 upon elephant spoor. The soil was soft sand, and the 

 footmarks had the appearance of being but that instant 

 imprinted, and were certainly not five minutes old. 

 We now spread out in a line, of which I was the left- 

 hand man, and with the exception of my own especial 

 Kafirs I was soon out of sight of the rest of the party. 

 The wind was in our favour, so we only had to 

 advance cautiously till we sighted the elephants, having 

 agreed before separating that whoever saw them first 

 should not fire, but send Kafirs to call the rest, that 

 we might all get a chance. In this manner I was creep- 

 ing forward, step by step, when suddenly one of my 

 Bushmen touched me gently on the arm, with a whis- 

 pered " — s — s," and upon turning and following the 

 direction of his hand and eyes, I beheld the dim out- 

 line of an elephant looming through the dense, sombre- 

 coloured, leafless bush. He was standing broadside 

 on, a little to my left, and after I had once seen him it 

 was easy enough to make him out, for he was not 

 over fifteen yards from us. I could see that he was 

 a bull, nearly full grown in point of size, though the 

 smallness of his tusks showed that he was still 

 young. When I first saw him he was standing per- 



