A TWO MONTHS' LEAVE IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 9 



direction of the sound for about two hundred yards, found 

 ourselves in a narrow open glade, with high grass and a few 

 bushes scattered over it. Elephants had evidently just passed 

 along this, and following the track cautiously, we found them 

 just within the forest, and about four hundred yards from where 

 we had first heard them. There were only two, and being 

 perfectly unconscious of our approach we might have got within 

 fifteen or twenty yards of them, and ought certainly to have 

 bagged them both as they stood ; but no sooner did Tuanko 

 see them than, without waiting for any one, or considering the 

 distance (some fifty yards), he let drive at the nearest. This, of 

 course, obliged us both to fire too, and all shooting at the same 

 elephant, he was very badly hit in the head, but managed to 

 follow his companion who had bolted. We followed imme- 

 diately, the track being very plain, and sprinkled with blood, 

 with here and there large lumps of bloody froth from the 

 wounded " gaja." 



For two hours they led us a dance through the forest, the 

 jungle getting thicker, and the trees fewer every minute, till at 

 last the jungle was so dense, that, excepting in the road made 

 by the elephants rushing through it, you could not see more 

 than a yard or so on any side. We were now close behind 

 them, and the wounded beast being " very wicked," as Tuanko 

 expressed it, they were disinclined to run much further, and we 

 could hear their angry roaring within a very short distance. 

 We worked them through this sort of stuff for some time, they 

 every now and then stopping, and, as we neared them, rushing 

 on again for a hundred yards or so. We found, too, that they 

 had now joined the remainder of the herd, thus making about 

 five altogether. This also seemed to give them confidence, and 

 in proportion as their pluck increased that of our tracker 

 diminished, for he now refused to go any further, and knuckled 

 up a tree. Tuanko had lagged behind, his feet, he said, being 

 full of thorns ; so C. and I, with our two gunbearers, went on 

 alone. 



We could not mistake the track, for it was impossible to 



