64 
THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
bull, so I fired at the head of the largest elephant I could see, 
and the explosion of my rifle was followed by a loud answering 
crack and squeal from the herd, which soon became enveloped 
in a dense cloud of dust. We ran on in pursuit, but they 
slipped away and crossed half a mile of open stony ground, 
passed a group of rocks which overhung a sand-river, and stood 
half a mile off, in moderately high jungle. Climbing the rocks 
I could see them, but following farther with my lame leg was 
out of the question, so my two trackers offered to go round and 
drive them to me if I would lend them my Martini rifle and 
Express and some cartridges. 
Meanwhile I seated myself on a rock and watched the herd. 
There was one very sick elephant in it, which seemed to be 
continually rolling, surrounded by a group of sympathising 
friends. I afterwards found this to be the bull first wounded 
— the one which had surprised us on the river bank — and he 
appeared to be in a dying state. While I was gazing over the 
forest at them they suddenly began to move in my direction 
very fast, and a moment later the breeze carried to my ears the 
reports of musketry fired at a distance from beyond the 
elephants. The herd disappeared for a minute and then 
emerged from the high jungle and came over the open, straight 
for my position ; they then turned into the river-bed and came 
past me at a great pace, at over eighty yards’ distance. I fired 
right and left at the shoulder of an old bull, the biggest of the 
three, carrying fine long tusks. He fell and kicked about for a 
second or two in a cloud of dust, and then turned up-stream 
with the others, going very fast. They then passed round my 
rock at about a hundred yards, too far for straight shooting with 
such a rifle, and got out of range, the badly- wounded bull being 
no doubt among them. There was one bull throwing sand over 
its back, which I concluded must be the sick one. 
My leg was now beginning to feel the strain of the day’s 
work, and at the second discharge of the heavy rifle I was sent 
flying, and subsided into a sitting posture among the rocks, the 
rifle dropping out of my hands. The elephants now sailed gaily 
away over huge boulders and torrent-beds with the activity of 
monkeys, and soon disappeared over the brow of a low hill, 
leaving me sitting on the rocks utterly fagged out. When the 
trackers came up we went to examine the place where the largest 
bull had fallen. The aloes were crushed to bits and the sand 
was much scraped about, but we did not notice any blood. The 
