i 3 2 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



with the report that they had encountered the spoor 

 of two large elephants which had passed close to my 

 camp about half an hour before. At this good news, 

 I immediately set forth, taking with me my two 

 trackers, Simba and Ntawasie, and my boy, Tweegah 

 the last carrying a couple of water-bottles. 



After about half an hour's spooring, we came up 

 with our quarry, who were peacefully resting under 

 the spreading branches of a magnificent nquaju tree, 

 and every now and then tearing down a small branch 

 and consuming it. With their extraordinarily keen 

 scent, they became aware of our presence, and, to 

 our disappointment, stampeded off wildly in different 

 directions. We gave chase to the larger one, the 

 impressions of whose feet in the soft dry sand were 

 enormous and led us to hope that his tusks would 

 prove of exceptional size. 



He showed himself a most wily old brute, for he 

 promptly took to the cover of long elephant-grass, 

 and for more than an hour kept dodging and 

 following the wind, leading us through a terrible 

 country, covered with a dense jungle of entangled 

 vegetation, full of the insufferable upupu bean, and 

 broken here and there by an occasional open space 

 with trampled grass, where elephants are wont to 

 rest. Just as the sun was setting, Ntawasie, 

 descrying our quarry, suddenly dropped to his knees 

 and pointed to a large tree, behind which the animal 



