Discover a Herd. 2O1 



paces from me, and upon careful inspection I distin- 

 guished two elephants standing close together. By the 

 rustling of the grass in different places I could see that 

 the herd was scattered, but I could not make out the 

 elephants individually, as the grass was above their 

 heads. 



I paused for some minutes to consider the best plan 

 of attack ; but the gun-bearers, who were behind me, 

 being in a great state of excitement, began to whisper 

 to each other, and in arranging their positions behind 

 their respective masters they knocked several of the 

 guns together. In the same moment the two leading 

 elephants discovered us, and, throwing their trunks up 

 perpendicularly, they blew the shrill trumpet of alarm 

 without attempting to retreat. Several trumpets an- 

 swered the call immediately from different positions in 

 the high grass, from which trunks were thrown up and 

 huge heads just appeared in many places, as they en- 

 deavored to discover the danger which the leaders had 

 announced. 



The growl of an elephant is exactly like the rumbling 

 of thunder, and from their deep lungs the two leaders, 

 who had discovered us, kept up an uninterrupted peal, 

 thus calling the herd together. Nevertheless, they did 

 not attempt to retreat, but stood gazing attentively at us 

 with their ears cocked, looking extremely vicious. In 

 the mean time we stood perfectly motionless, lest we 

 should scare them before the whole herd had closed up. 

 In about a minute a dense mass of elephants had col- 

 lected round the two leaders, who were all gazing at us ; 

 and thinking this a favorable moment, I gave the word, 

 and we pushed toward them through the high grass. 

 A portion of the herd immediately wheeled round and 



