CHAP. XXIII. 
THE ELEPHANT-HUNT. 
253 
the next day, the sea was still very rough, and the 
6 Petrel,’ while in a trough between two great 4 rollers,’ 
bumped twice on the bar. I was at the time leaning 
over the side of the ship, and observed quantities of 
sand and gravel bubbling up in a turmoil of water as 
from a boiling caldron, and I shall never forget the 
coolness displayed by Captain Gordon on this occasion. 
At the moment the ship bumped I was reflecting 
that not fifty yards from the very spot my uncle lost 
his ship, the 4 Emu,’ in 1817, whilst surveying the 
coast, previous to the British settlers of 1820 emigra¬ 
ting to the Cape Colony. The rock upon which she 
struck is still called by her name, the c Emu Rock.’ 
A few days after this His Royal Highness gave a 
return ball at Simon’s Bay to the inhabitants of Cape 
Town, and the most imposing ornament at the entrance 
of the ballroom was one of the elephants’ skulls, which 
had been cleaned of all flesh and polished by the ship’s 
company. The skeleton-head, with the great tusks pro¬ 
truding, was a fitting memorial of the hunt. 
The carcass of the elephant shot on the first day’s 
hunt was subsequently found by some roving hunters ; 
the tusks were extracted from the head, and were sold 
to a Dutch farmer in the Long Kloof district—making 
in all three elephants killed by our hunting-party. 
