70 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



the wounded elephant, but decided to go and cut off the tails 

 of the two that were down before following it. Passing the 

 second one I had shot, to go to the first and largest, to my 

 intense chagrin I could not see it ; and, looking carefully, found 

 where it had lain, but only a large pool of blood there now, 

 no elephant ! This is an instance of the disappointments a 

 hunter has to bear, after days of hard toil and fatigue, just 

 when he has the fruits within his grasp. We then took up the 

 spoor of the large cow which I had left for dead. We followed 

 it a good way (or what we believed to be its spoor, for there 

 was some confusion of tracks owing to there being blood 

 on the spoors of both this and the other I had wounded), 

 and then heard the cry of an elephant ahead several times 

 at intervals, and at last got so close as to hear its stomach 

 rumbling once. The bush was here pretty thick, though the 

 ground was as rocky as ever. 1 tried to get up to it, but it 

 probably heard or winded me, for I only got a rather distant 

 glimpse of the top of its back as it made off. We tried to 

 follow, but the rocks made running almost impossible, and 

 though I climbed a tree it was nowhere to be seen ; all I saw 

 were two giraffes calmly browsing quite close by — much closer 

 than one can ever get to them when you want to shoot one. 

 We lost much time and also the spoor by this ; and when, after 

 trying back, we did at last again pick up the latter, it was 

 afternoon, we were all very fagged, thirsty and disappointed, and 

 I decided to give it up. 



The day had been excessively hot and sultry, the sun 

 beating down upon and being reflected by the rocks with 

 terrible power ; the going had been trying in the extreme, 

 and the men had stupidly forgotten or neglected to fill the 

 water bottles. I had done a lot of running, too, as far as it 

 was possible to run among such a jumble of rocks ; but what 

 made me the victim of thirst especially that day (for I do not 

 commonly suffer in that way) was that I had drunk cocoa instead 

 of tea that morning. So when at last, well on into the 



