164 ELEPHANTS. 



elephants who had halted to wait for their companion. 

 As we advanced they moved into an adjacent glade where 

 we again opened fire but without effect, for charging off 

 they crossed the stream into another thicket of " Seega 

 kye " and bamboos, through which we valorously 

 followed till our clothes were torn to rags. This burst 

 lasted for ten minutes, when we emerged into more open 

 forest for some hundreds of yards, until we again found 

 ourselves in a hopeless brake of male bamboo, so thick 

 that it was impossible to see five yards in front. The 

 tracks separated here, so we did the same, each of us 

 following his own line, it was a regular maze, but by 

 following in the elephant's wake, a view was obtainable for 

 about ten yards in front. 



When fifty yards inside the thicket, a loud crashing 

 close to my right was followed by the apparition of the 

 tusker, charging along the back track. He was twelve 

 yards from me, but the right barrel missed him clean, the 

 bullet cutting a bamboo stem just over his head (a record 

 shot). The left barrel, fired when he was almost on the 

 top of me, luckily turned him a little, and he passed 

 within a few feet on my left, and thundered away through 

 the bamboos like an express train. Done to a turn I 

 crawled out of the thicket and threw myself upon the 

 ground, where Gumming, having heard my shots, soon 

 arrived, dead beat also. The stream was close at hand 

 where a drink and wet handkerchiefs round our heads 

 soon revived us. We had a good laugh over my curious 

 shot, and a useful rest of ten minutes before continuing 

 the fray. To avoid the bamboos we then made a detour 

 and soon struck the trail of both the elephants, which led 

 us along the right bank of the stream for two hundred 

 * Thorny acacia. 



