rding to their annual custom were coming
westward, and were only a day's journey from our kraal.

I therefore assembled all the men whom I had formerly taught to use a
gun, and told them that I wished their help in shooting some of the
largest elephants. I explained to them that an elephant might be hit by
many bullets and yet would not be killed, unless he were struck by the
bullet behind the shoulder, or in the chest. I then said that I could
give them powder and could make bullets for them, so that they need not
expend the store of those which they had carefully preserved in case
they were attacked again by the Zulus. The Caffres expressed their
willingness to join me in my shooting expedition, but reminded me that
there was as much danger in attacking elephants as there was in a fight
with the Zulus. I admitted that there was danger, but that, if we were
careful, we need none of us get hurt.

I had brought with me from England two large-bored double-barrelled
guns, which I knew would be well-suited for shooting elephants or other
large game, and I had practised with these guns at Cape Town, and could
make nearly certain of hitting a mark the size of a man's head at eighty
yards nearly every time I fired. I felt, therefore, great confidence in
my weapons, and I intended to take Tembile with me when I hunted, and to
make him carry my second gun, by which means I could obtain four shots
at any one elephant.

News was brought us two or three times a day by Caffres, as to where the
elephants were feeding and what they were doing; so, all our plans being
arranged, I started with Tembile and four other Caffres for that part of
the bush where it was thought we should find the elephants.

The bush in this part of Africa consisted of large trees, about ten or
twenty paces apart. Between these there was dense matted underwood, so
thick and tangled that a man could not force his way through it. From
the trees creepers of large size hung in festoons, like large ropes.
Some of these had projecting from them thorns an inch or more in length,
and sharp as a needle. The dense underwood rose to a height of three
men, so that it was in many places impossible to see round you a greater
distance than you could reach with an assagy. The only means of moving
through the bush in these dense parts was by following the paths made by
the elephants. When a herd of these animals had been for any length of
time in the bush, they mad