130 THE ELEPHANT OF AfKICA. 
the meadows. As we proceeded cautiously 
onward, some of these groups came more dis- 
tinctly into view — consisting apparently, in many 
instances, of separate families, the male, the 
female, and the young of different sizes ; and the 
gigantic magnitude of the chief leaders became 
more and more striking. The calm and stately 
tranquillity of their deportment, too, was remark- 
able. Though we were a band of about a dozen 
horsemen, including our Hottentot attendants, 
they seemed either not to observe, or altogether 
to disregard, our march down the valley.” 
“ As we rode leisurely along through a meadow 
thickly studded over with clumps of tall ever- 
greens, I observed something moving over the 
top of a bush close a-head of us, and had just time 
to say to the gentleman next me — ‘ Look out 
there ! when we turned the corner of the bush, 
and beheld an enormous male Elephant standing 
right in the path within less than a hundred paces 
distance. We halted and surveyed him for a few 
minutes in silent admiration and astonishment. 
He was, indeed, a mighty and magnificent crea- 
ture. The two engineer officers, who were 
familiar with the appearance of the Elephant in 
his wild state, agreed that the animal before us 
was at least fourteen feet in height ; and our 
Hottentots, in their broken Dutch, whispered that 
he was ‘ ecu groot gruwzaam karl — bania’, bania’ 
