234 .ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



the Bamangwato country without again even seeing 

 what my heart so ardently desired, viz., an old bull ele- 

 phant free in his native forests, and day and night I 

 mourned my folly in losing the opportunity which I 

 had neglected on the 27th day of June. 



But Patience ivill have her perfect work, and the 

 day had at last arrived which was to repay my steady 

 perseverance with complete success. At an early hour 

 on the 24th, 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 Mutchu- 

 isho and a hundred and fifty of his tribe. We held a 

 northeasterly course, and, having proceeded about five 

 miles through the forest, reached a fountain, where I 

 observed the spoor of a herd of cow elephants, two days 

 old. Here we made a short halt, and snufi' was briskly 

 circulated, while the leading men debated on- the course 

 we were to follow, and it was agreed that we should 

 hold for the Bakalahari kraal. Having continued our 

 course for several miles, we rounded the northern ex- 

 tremity 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 Mutchuisho had dispatched before day- 

 break, who said that, the Bakalahari women had that 

 morning seen elephants. This was joyous news. My 

 hopes were high, and I at once felt certain that the hour 

 of triumph was at hand. But disappointment was still 

 in store for me. We all sat down on the grass, while 

 men were dispatched to bring the Bakalahari, and when 

 these came we ascertained that it was only spoor and 

 not elephants they had seen. We held on for an in 

 spection of it ; and here I was further to be disappoint- 

 ed, the spoor proving to be two days old. 



