334 



HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



CHAPTER LV. 



KILLING, CUTTING UP, COOKING AND EATING AN ELEPHANT, 



T an early hour on the 24th, says Mr. Gum- 

 ming, upon the strength of the report brought 

 to us .on the preceding evening, I took the 

 field with Isaac and Kleinboy as after- riders, 

 accompanied by Mutchuisho and a hundred 

 and fifty of his tribe. We held a north- 

 easterly course, and, having proceeded about 

 five miles through the forest, reached a foun- 

 tain, where I observed the spoor of a herd of cow elephants, two 

 days old. Here we made a short halt, and snufFwas briskly cir- 

 culated, while the leading men debated on the course we were to 

 follow, and it was agreed th;.t we should hold for the Bakalahan 

 kraal. Having continued our course for several miles, we rounded 

 the northern extremity of a range of rocky mountains which rose 

 abruptly in the forest and stretched away to the south of east in 

 a long-continued chain. Here we were met by men whom Mut- 

 chuisho had dispatched before day-break, who said that the Baka- 



