178 APPROACH TO A WARY ELEPHANT. 



others were near, as it would have been injudicious to 

 make an attack on this one, and thereby stand a chance 

 of having our retreat cut off by any other elephant that 

 might be nearer. We discovered no others very close, 

 but the snapping of branches in the distance occasionally 

 showed that our purposed victim was not without company. 

 Throwing up some sand, we found the wind was favourable 

 for our advance, although the eddies that are always met 

 in the bush rendered it advisable to move on with as much 

 quickness as was consistent with silence. 



Our advance, although conducted with the same stealth 

 that marks the movement of a cat towards its prey, was 

 still not sufficiently inaudible to escape the refined senses 

 of the elephant. He ceased feeding, and remained for 

 some minutes like a statue. A novice would have 

 laughed had he been told that a wild elephant of twelve 

 feet high was within a few yards of him ; the only indica- 

 tion the animal gave of his presence was a slight blowing 

 through the trunk as the unsavoury flavour of my warm 

 Kaffirs was wafted to his sensitive olfactories, or as a dried 

 stick cracked under his spungy feet. The density of the 

 underwood, which was caused by the festoons of wild vine 

 and creepers, prevented our seeing more than a yard 

 or two in many parts ; and though the branches directly 

 over us were shaken by the movement of the monster's 

 body, yet we could make out nothing but a dark mass 

 of bush : to have fired thus, therefore, would have been 

 folly. Monyosi had frequently eaten little bits of his 

 charmed wood : I dared not speak to ask him its specific, 

 but I afterwards learnt it was infallible as a preventive 



