288 ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



trying back on the spoor and making wide oasts to 

 the right and left, I was completely beatenj and com- 

 pelled to drop it, the Bechuanas sitting down and sulk- 

 ily refusing to prooeod further. We now bent our 

 steps homeward. We had not- ridden many miles 

 when we observed a herd of fifteen camelopards brows- 

 ing.quietly in an open glade of the forest. After a very 

 severe chase, in the course of which they stretched out 

 into a magnificent widely-extended front, keeping their 

 line with a regularity worthy of a troop of dragoons, 

 I succeeded in separating a fine bull, upward of eig'ht- 

 een feet in height, from the rest of the herd, and 

 brought him to the ground within a short distance of 

 the camp. The Bechuanas expressed themselves de- 

 lighted at my success. They kindled a fire and slept 

 beside the carcass, which they very soon reduced to bil- 

 toiigue and marrow-bones. 



On the morning of the 8th I walked to the fountain 

 and examined all the elephants' foot-paths, but there 

 was no fresh spoor. Having breakfasted, I rode for a 

 conical hill, distant from the wagons' about five miles 

 in a northacly direction, from whose summit I fancied 

 that elephants might be seen. It was a charming cool 

 day, with a fine bracing wind, the sky heautifiilly over- 

 oast with clouds. I rode along, holding the elephants' 

 foot-paths. The marks of their strength were visible 

 in every grove, and all the large trees in the vicinity 

 of the muddy vleys, which at this season were dry, 

 were plastered with sun-baked mud to a height of 

 twelve feet from the ground. On reaching the base 

 of the conical hill I secured my horse to a tree, and as- 

 cended to its summit, from which I carefully examined 

 the distant forest landscape with vAj spy-glass, but 

 sought in vain for elephants. 



