220 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



apart. In doing this, they sometimes place one foot 

 in front, and the other as far back as possible, and 

 then by a series of little jerks widen the distance 

 between the two, until they succeed in getting their 

 mouths down to the water ; sometimes they sprawl 

 their legs out sideways in a similar manner. 



During the night no elephants came down to 

 drink, as 1 had hoped they might do, by the paths 

 near which we had camped ; so next morning I again 

 pushed on, and made a good day's march. In the 

 evening, being rather short of meat, I shot a tsessebe 

 antelope, in very fine condition. Though the meat 

 of these antelopes is tolerably good, the tat, like that 

 of the wildebeest, turns hard, unless very hot, and 

 sticks to the palate in a most disagreeable manner. 



The following day (September 8) was another red- 

 letter day in my hunting annals, as on it I again shot 

 five elephants out of one troop, all cows. I came up 

 with them late in the afternoon, having followed 

 the spoor since sunrise, in deep sand, and under a 

 sweltering sun. We got them at last standing in a 

 small patch of bush, though the surrounding forest 

 was pretty open. On my firing at a fine cow, a 

 number that I had not seen, and that, having been 

 roused suddenly from a sound sleep, did not know 

 exactly where the danger lay, came running down 

 towards us from both sides. Our position at one 

 moment seemed critical, and had any vicious old cow 

 got our wind, she might have made it warm for us. 

 As it was, our shouts at length turned them, and, 

 my guns being reloaded, I broke the shoulder of one 

 of them just as she was swinging round, and, on 

 despatching her with a second bullet, saw, for the 

 first time, that she had but a single tusk, which was, 

 however, remarkably long and white. I then made 



