222 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



sign of a hollow where the fellow ought to be. It is 

 far from uncommon to meet with one-tusked animals 

 amongst elephant cows in South Africa, though rarer 

 amongst the bulls. 



It seems dreadful to slaughter so many of these 

 huge creatures merely for their tusks ; for, if there 

 are no Bushmen or other natives about, the carcases 

 are abandoned to the hyaenas and vultures. But /'/ 

 faut vivre. Ivory is the only thing obtainable in this 

 country with which to defray the heavy expenses of 

 hunting ; and if you depend on your gun for a living, 

 as was my case, it behoves you to do your best when 

 you get a chance. It is true that within a week I 

 had killed ten elephants ; but from this date (the 8th 

 of September) until the 20th of November, though 

 I was hunting continually the entire time, and 

 tramped over an enormous extent of wild and utterly 

 uninhabited country, I only saw one more of these 

 animals (a young bull) in all that time. I mention 

 these facts to show how much work an elephant- 

 hunter has often to go through, taking it all in all, 

 for each animal killed. 



Whilst following on the spoor of the elephants, I 

 was surprised, upon issuing from a thick goussy 

 forest, to find myself suddenly in face of a hill of 

 considerable height. As this was the first hill of any 

 sort or kind I had seen since leaving the Victoria 

 Falls, and as it is certainly the only eminence within 

 a radius of very many miles, I viewed it with great 

 curiosity, and could I have afforded the time would 

 certainly have ascended it. As it was, however, the 

 spoor, after approaching pretty close to its foot, 

 again led us away in a contrary direction. I after- 

 wards heard from the marsh natives that their name 

 for this hill is " Umgooloo." This is the same hill 



