54 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
times we fell in with ostriches, but always found their vision 
too good for us. They look like gigantic fowls as they go 
streaming away over the plains. At Gulanleh w T e also saw a 
herd of wild asses, which halted fifty yards away to gaze. We, 
however, held our fire, not considering them fair game. They 
were splendid animals, very well marked with stripes on the 
legs- 
On 13th May my patience w r as rewarded by the arrival of 
the three horsemen, with the news that they had found a large 
herd of elephants at Jalelo, about twelve miles away to the 
west ; so we packed a few blankets, axes, tinned provisions, and 
other necessaries on a camel, and filling my pockets with dates, 
I set out at 8 a.m. for the Jalelo covert, accompanied by two 
mounted trackers, the Midgan, and two other men, leaving the 
GuMnleh camp in the charge of Nur Osman. The forest at 
Jalelo consists chiefly of the heavy guda timber bordering the 
Hembeweina river, which lower down is called Issutugan. 
There are extensive tracts of reeds in the river-bed, and these 
are so dense it is hard work forcing a path through them, and 
once inside it is impossible to see anything except at a distance 
of a few feet. After a hot march we struck the Hembeweina 
river at Jalelo, and, sending the mounted trackers and all the 
other men to hunt up the elephants, I sat under a wild date- 
palm, and lunched off sardines, dates, and the contents of my 
water-bottle. 
The mid-day sun had been fearfully hot, and I was just 
dozing off to sleep under the grateful shade of the date-palm, 
when my head tracker, Hussein Debeli, came bounding up in 
a state of excitement, brandishing his big stabbing spear and 
dancing round me in circles. I knew at once that his news 
was good, and, after a pause to take breath, he said he had 
suddenly seen a very large bull elephant in the bed of the 
river only half a mile below my palm-tree. Packing everything 
quickly on the camel, and leaving orders for it to be brought 
on slowly after us, I took Hussein Debeli as guide, and shoulder- 
ing my four -bore rifle, which weighed over twenty pounds, 
started off to look up the elephant. As we rounded a spur 
he came into full view, walking quickly down the centre of the 
river-bed below us, turning his head from side to side as he 
swung along, his great ears sticking out at right angles like 
studding-sails. He looked rather disturbed in his mind, and 
as a breeze was blowing from us down the river towards him, 
