Recovering From My Astonishment, I Thought It Prudent To Retire Also - Especially, With A Pea-Shooter Loaded With Treacherous Sawdust Cartridges In My Hand.

As I looked behind, I saw him waving his trunk, which I understood to mean, "Good-bye, young fellow; it is lucky for you you went in time, for I was going to pound you to a jelly."

As I was congratulating myself, a wasp darted fiercely at me and planted its sting in my neck, and for that afternoon my anticipated pleasures were dispelled. Arriving at camp I found the men grumbling; their provisions were ended, and there was no prospect for three days, at least, of procuring any. With the improvidence usual with the gluttons, they had eaten their rations of grain, all their store of zebra and dried buffalo meat, and were now crying out that they were famished.

The tracks of animals were numerous, but it being the rainy season the game was scattered everywhere; whereas, had we travelled during the dry season through these forests our larders might have been supplied fresh each day.

Some time about 6 P.M., as the Doctor and I were taking our tea outside the tent, a herd of elephants, twelve in number, passed about 800 yards off. Our fundi, Asmani and Mabruki Kisesa, were immediately despatched in pursuit. I would have gone myself with the heavy Reilly rifle, only I was too much fatigued. We soon heard their guns firing, and hoped they were successful, as a plentiful supply of meat might then have been procured, while we ourselves would have secured one of the elephant's feet for a nice delicate roast; but within an hour they returned unsuccessful, having only drawn blood, some of which they exhibited to us on a leaf.

It requires a very good rifle to kill an African elephant. A No. 8 bore with a Frazer's shell, planted in the temple, I believe, would drop an elephant each shot. Faulkner makes some extraordinary statements, about walking up in front of an elephant and planting a bullet in his forehead, killing him instantly. The tale, however, is so incredible that I would prefer not to believe it; especially when he states that the imprint of the muzzle of his rifle was on the elephant's trunk. African travellers - especially those with a taste for the chase - are too fond of relating that which borders on the incredible for ordinary men to believe them. Such stories must be taken with a large grain of salt, for the sake of the amusement they afford to readers at home. In future, whenever I hear a man state how he broke the back of an antelope at 600 yards, I shall incline to believe a cipher had been added by a slip of the pen, or attribute it to a typographical error, for this is almost an impossible feat in an African forest. It may be done once, but it could never be done twice running.

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