296 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



the Cape hartebeest, now quite a scarce animal, as 

 it has been either exterminated in most parts of its 

 former range or driven into the waterless deserts of 

 South-Western Africa. 



In the dense thorn jungles which lay a little to 

 the north of my route, a large herd of elephants 

 spent the whole year, as I saw their tracks when 

 travelling westwards from Matabeleland, and again 

 on my return eastwards some five months later. 

 These animals were, however, very wary, never 

 drinking twice running at one pool, and travelling 

 immense distances every night. I twice followed 

 their spoor for a whole day and slept on it without 

 coming up with them. But besides this large herd 

 of cow and young bull elephants, there were four 

 immense old bulls (judging from their tracks), which 

 frequented the same jungles but lived by themselves 

 apart from the herd. 



These old patriarchs I tried hard but unsuccess- 

 fully to find in the daytime, and I also watched for 

 them at nights on several occasions at vleys at 

 which they had been in the habit of drinking, but I 

 never had the luck to hit off the right pool of water 

 on the right night. Once they drank at a vley 

 within a mile of the one at which I was watching, 

 and I heard them at the water, but on this occasion 

 I think they must have got my wind, as, although I 

 was early on their tracks and followed them all day 

 with the best Bushmen spoorers, I never got near 

 them, and the next day rode home, shooting a fat 

 giraffe cow on the way. 



I may here remark that it is of little use, if you 

 do not come up with elephants which have been 

 frightened on the first day, to follow them any 

 farther, as, when alarmed, these animals travel very 

 fast and far at nights, and on the morning of the 

 second day will, in all probability, be much farther 

 off than they were when you first took up their spoor. 



