326 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
open plains, and dense 6 vac nm bechis,’ at a rattling 
pace, without an instant’s check, hour after hour, ex¬ 
pecting every minute to come on him, and cantering 
on to the rises, hoping to see him in the open before 
us. At length, January picked up another bull, and 
they joined company, still holding right away. At 
last we saw them far ahead, two old bulls; they 
almost immediately got our wind and took right 
away. We should never have seen them, only, luckily, 
the bush was thin. It was a headlong race who 
should get them, and Raffeta and myself had the 
honour, my horse having the heels of all, very closely 
followed by old President, who is the gamest old 
horse I ever possessed. We each took one, and 
Alington and I slew mine quickly, and then we went 
to the assistance of Raffeta and Boy, who had done 
little towards giving theirs his quietus. The horses 
would not stand, and the elephant ran so hard 
that we were some time in settling him. The top of 
my powder-flask came off, and the powder was all 
loose in my pocket, and I loaded haphazard by 
the handful of fine powder. I gave him the final 
shot, with, I should say, about twelve drachms of 
powder, and down came the elephant with a des¬ 
perate crash, his near shoulder-blade smashed to 
atoms. The excitement was so great that I did not 
feel the gun recoil in the least, though afterwards 
I found my fore finger half broken and my right 
cheek covered with blood. My bull charged con¬ 
stantly, and I kept galloping round in small circles, 
