We Then Saw That The Buffalo Was Moving Off
Quite Briskly, And, In Order Not To Be Entirely Balked, I Tried A Long Shot
At The Last Of The Elephants, And, To The Great Joy Of My People,
Broke His Fore Leg.
The young men soon brought him to a stand,
and one shot in the brain dispatched him.
I was right glad to see
the joy manifested at such an abundant supply of meat.
On the following day, while my men were cutting up the elephant,
great numbers of the villagers came to enjoy the feast.
We were on the side of a fine green valley, studded here and there with trees,
and cut by numerous rivulets. I had retired from the noise,
to take an observation among some rocks of laminated grit,
when I beheld an elephant and her calf at the end of the valley,
about two miles distant. The calf was rolling in the mud,
and the dam was standing fanning herself with her great ears.
As I looked at them through my glass, I saw a long string of my own men
appearing on the other side of them, and Sekwebu came and told me
that these had gone off saying, "Our father will see to-day
what sort of men he has got." I then went higher up the side of the valley,
in order to have a distinct view of their mode of hunting.
The goodly beast, totally unconscious of the approach of an enemy,
stood for some time suckling her young one, which seemed about two years old;
they then went into a pit containing mud, and smeared themselves
all over with it, the little one frisking about his dam,
flapping his ears and tossing his trunk incessantly, in elephantine fashion.
She kept flapping her ears and wagging her tail, as if in
the height of enjoyment.
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