HUNTING TROPHIES. SOI 



was by ■watching the vultures ; but these birds, know- 

 ing that they can not brealc the skin of the larger game, 

 preferred remaining above and around the Bechuanas, 

 where the butchering was going briskly forward. They 

 perched in groups upon the old branches of the larger 

 trees, or darkened the sky in hundreds with their broad 

 and shadowy wings. 



While, however, I mourned the loss of these wound- 

 ed elephants, I reckoned that I had been favored with 

 immense good fortune in many instances during the 

 past week. Ever intent upon embellishing and in- 

 creasing my princely collection of African hunting tro- 

 phies, I placed great value upon any specimen I hap- 

 pened to shoot which I thought worth adorning it. 

 Thus I neglected my real interest'; and instead of de- 

 voting my attention to rendering my expedition profit- 

 able, I allowed this very necessary part of the business 

 to remain quite a secondary consideration. Thus, when 

 I shot an ordinary bull elephant, I was accustomed to 

 say to myself, " Ah ! a good bull ; tusks at least fifty 

 pounds each ; 4s. 6d. a pound ; bring me in d£22 10s. 

 Capital day's work ; help me to pay for the two horses 

 that died last week, or the four that are bitten with 

 ' tsetse,' and must die in a week or two." But if, on 

 the other hand, I shot an elephant with a pair of tusks 

 of unusual size, perfection, or beauty, I at once devoted 

 them to my collection, and valued them at a ten-fold 

 price. This, then, was one thing in which I reckoned 

 I had been extremely fortunate — I had secured the 

 finest tusks in all that nest of patriarchal old bulls 

 which I had so sadly cut up in one short week, and 

 which, perhaps, the summers of a century had seen 

 roaming through these boundless fbrests in peaceful 

 eeourity. 



12 



