198 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. XXIII. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



ELEPHANT HUNTING IN THE CASHAN 



MOUNTAINS. 



Before daybreak the following morning, it was 

 discovered that the oxen, having been alarmed by 

 lions^ had made their escape from the pound, A 

 party was despatched in pursuit of them, and we 

 proceeded into the hills to look for buffaloes. The 

 thunder-storm having purified the atmosphere^ 

 rendered the weather delightfully cool, and a deep 

 wooded defile which had not been approached by 

 the conflagration of the day before, was filled with 

 game that had fled before the flames. A rhinoceros 

 was killed almost immediately, and before we had 

 reloaded, a noble herd of near one hundred and 

 fifty buffaloes was perceived on a slope overhanging 

 a sedgy stream. Having crept within five-and- 

 twenty yards, we despatched two bulls before the 

 alarm was spread. Crashing through the forest, 

 they overturned decayed trees in their route, and 

 swept along the brow of the opposite hill in fearful 

 confusion, squeezed together in a compact phalanx, 

 and raising an incredible cloud of dust to mark 

 their course. We mounted our horses, and after 

 sticking some time in the treacherous mud of the 

 rivulet, gained the opposite bank, and brought two 



