406 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
earth over, about 9 feet long by feet wide, and 
there lay in wait for elephants coining to drink. One 
savage cow got his wind, rushed up to the mouth 
of the hole, thrust her trunk in as far as possible, 
hammered away at the sides, and felt for him every¬ 
where, but could not reach him, and had not quite 
sagacity enough to throw off the branches, or she must 
have got him. He assures me she stayed full five 
minutes, and he could see nothing to shoot at but her 
fore feet and trunk. I was more fortunate ; I heard a 
brute in the water, peeped cautiously out of my 
hiding place, and just as she turned round after 
quenching her thirst, I gave her my bullet behind 
the shoulder, at a distance of twelve yards, with such 
force as to go right through her, and there were two 
streams of blood from the water to where we found 
her, about 1,000 yards off, dead this morning. My face 
is in such a bruised, discoloured state that my dearest 
friend would scarcely recognise me ; and no wonder, 
the reader will perhaps say; but in this night shooting 
you have only one chance, and if you don’t take ad¬ 
vantage of that, you have your long solitary watch 
for nothing. 
Tusks are gradually accumulating, and I shall 
have one good load at all events, but have let the 
best of the season go by, in my wild-goose chase 
after the Zambesi Falls. I shall trek out in about a 
month at farthest, and hope again to spend Christmas- 
day in Natal. 
I am going to sleep to-night at a fountain some 
