THE BLAT ELEPHANT. 197 



There was little chance of another visit from it, 

 therefore, and we turned in to sleep at an early 

 hour. 



At daybreak next morning Ahman, Sleman, and I 

 set off down-stream in a small dug-out. We found the 

 place where the elephant had crossed the river, and 

 landed. The tracks showed that it had fed close to 

 the river bank most of the night: then they led 

 inland, and we followed them for some hours. We 

 were now some miles down-stream of the country 

 in which we had been tracking for the last two 

 days, and were not far from the mangrove belt and 

 the tidal area. The forest was no less heavily tim- 

 bered than that farther up-stream, and the under- 

 growth was even more dense and more thickly en- 

 cumbered with rattans and thorny creepers. The 

 greater part of our way lay through swamp and 

 morass, in which patches of higher ground were 

 interspersed. 



At about ten o'clock Ahman kicked a piece of the 

 elephant's dung in half, and felt in its centre with 

 his bare toes to discover some remnant of heat. It 

 was quite cold. "We must hurry," he said; "the 

 elephant is a long way in front of us." 



The tracks followed a well-defined animal path 

 through the forest, and it was only necessary to keep 

 to this path and have a watchful eye for any place 

 at which the elephant might have left it. We 

 hurried along, Ahman close behind me and Sleman 

 at his heels. And a few hundred paces farther on, 

 at a place where the path made a sudden bend 

 round the trunk of an old dead tree, I saw lying 



