GLOOMY ANTICIPATIONS. 243 



the guides, who had now come up, asking them why 

 they followed me to destruction. 



At length wcreached the further side of this dreary 

 waste of ashes, but now an equally cheerless prospect 

 was before me. We entered a vast forest, gray with 

 extreme age, and so thick that we could not see forty 

 yards in advance. We were obliged occasionally to halt 

 the wagons and cut down trees and branches to admit 

 of their passing; and, to make matters still worse, the 

 country had become extremely heavy, the wagons sink- 

 ing deep in soft sand. My men began to show a mu- 

 tinous spirit by expressing their opinions aloud in my 

 presence. I remonstrated with them, and told them 

 that, if I did not bring them to water next day before 

 the sun was under, they might turn the oxen on their 

 spoor. We continued our march through this dense 

 forest until nightfall, when I halted for the night beside 

 a wide-spreading tree: here I cast my oxen loose for 

 an hour, and then secured them on the yokes by moon- 

 light. 



I felt very sad and unhappy in my mind, for I con- 

 sidered that the chances were against me, and I shud- 

 dered at the idea of returning to the colony, after com- 

 ing so very far, without shooting or even seeing what 

 my heart most ardently desired, viz., a wild bull ele- 

 phant free in his native Jungle. I took some wine, and, 

 coming to the fire which the men had kindled for the 

 night beneath a magnificent old cameel-dorn tree, I 

 affected great cheerfulness and contentment, and, laugh- 

 ing at the four Bechuanas, I told them that I was not 

 a child that they should lead me astray, but that I was 

 an old warrior and a cunning hunter, and could, find 

 niy way in strange lands. I jaughed, but it was the 

 laugh of despair, for I expected that next evening they 



