A SHARP LOOK-OUT. 189 



matters in bush-ranging, I will give another day's sport 

 with Monyosi in the Berea. 



We had gone in after elephants, and were on their 

 spoor of the previous night. There had been a great deal 

 of listening and peeping, as the day was so warm that we 

 expected the elephants would be clustered together in 

 some shady glen, and would not move until we were right 

 upon them. As we were seated, listening, Monyosi sud- 

 denly looked up attentively at a tree near us, and seemed 

 to think that all was not as it should be. I asked him what 

 was wrong, when he said he did not know, but that a bird 

 had flown to a tree near us, stayed a little while, and had 

 then gone away. By the manner in which it had hopped 

 about, he could see that it was alarmed at something; and 

 it would not have flown towards us, had its flight been occa- 

 sioned by our noise. I thought the cause a slight one ; but 

 still, it is the dust, not the rock, that indicates the wind's 

 direction. Monyosi did not seem easy, but proposed that we 

 should proceed in the direction from whence the bird had 

 approached us. We did so, and after one hundred yards 

 sat down to listen. Presently a very slight crack of a 

 branch or bit of stick caused our guns to be raised to full 

 cock, and we to peep about between the branches for a 

 sight at whatever it might be. The game was very cun- 

 ning, and for full two minutes there was not a move on 

 either side; our patience, however,, was the greater, as 

 we soon heard two or three light steps from the suspicious 

 quarter. I saw a smile on Monyosi' s face ; he uncocked 

 his gun, and gave a low whistle, which was responded to 

 by another in the bush a few yards distant. Soon after, 



