558 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
anas lay, and at first led me through very bad wait-a-bit 
thorn cover, which once or twice nearly swept me out of the 
saddle. Presently he inclined to the west, and got into 
better country; I then rode close up to him, and bowled 
him over with four shots. 
With one more glimpse of the cool extravagance charac- 
teristic of the Professional Hunter, and of which Cummings 
has prided himself upon giving us so many specimens, we 
take our leave of elephant hunting in South Africa. The 
following is most refreshing. 
On the 31st I held south-east in quest of elephants, with a 
large party of the natives. Our course lay through an open 
part of the forest, where I beheld a troop of springboks and 
two ostriches, the first I had seen for a long time. We held 
for Towannie, a strong fountain in the gravelly bed of a 
periodical river: here two herds of cow elephants had drunk 
on the preceding evening, but I declined to follow them; and 
presently, at a muddy fountain a little in advance, we took 
up the spoor of an enormous bull, which had wallowed in the 
mud, and then plastered the sides of several of the adjacent 
veteran-looking trees. We followed the spoor through level 
forest in an easterly direction, when the leading party overran 
the spoor, and casts were made for its recovery. Presently 
T detected an excited native beckoning violently a little to my 
left, and, cantering up to him, he said that he had seen the 
elephant. He led me through the forest a few hundred yards, 
when, clearing a wait-a-bit, I came full in view of the tallest 
and largest bull elephant I had ever seen. He stood broadside 
to me, at upward of one hundred yards, and his attention at 
the moment was occupied with the dogs, which, unaware of 
his proximity, were rushing past him, while the old fellow 
seemed to gaze at their unwonted appearance with surprise. 
Halting my horse, I fired at his shoulder, and secured him 
with a single shot. The ball caught him high upon the 
shoulder-blade, rendering him instantly dead lame; and 
