myself with securing only one
elephant. The first was now dying, and could not leave the ground, and
the second was also mortally wounded, and I had only to follow and
finish her; but I foolishly allowed her to escape, while I amused myself
with the first, which kept walking backward, and standing by every tree
she passed. Two more shots finished her: on receiving them, she tossed
her trunk up and down two or three times, and, falling on her broadside
against a thorny tree, which yielded like grass, before her enormous
weight, she uttered a deep, hoarse cry and expired. This was a very
handsome old cow elephant, and was decidedly the best in the troop. She
was in excellent condition, and carried a pair of long and perfect
tusks.

I was in high spirits at my success, and felt so perfectly satisfied
with having killed one, that, although it was still early in the day,
and my horses were fresh, I allowed the troop of five bulls to remain
unmolested, foolishly trusting to fall in with them next day. How little
did I then know of the habits of elephants, or the rules to be adopted
in hunting them, or deem it probable I should never see them more!

Having knee-haltered our horses, we set to work with our knives and
assagais to prepare the skull for the hatchet, in order to cut out the
tusks, nearly half the length of which, I may mention, is imbedded in
bone sockets in the fore part of the skull. To cut out the tusks of a
cow elephant requires barely one-fifth of the labor requisite to cut out
those of a bull; and when the sun went down, we had managed by our
combined efforts to cut out one of the tusks of my first elephant, with
which we triumphantly returned to camp, having left the guides in charge
of the carcass, where they volunteered to take up their quarters for the
night. On reaching my wagons I found Johannus and Carollus in a happy
state of indifference to all passing events: they were both very drunk,
having broken into my wine-cask and spirit-case.

On the 28th I arose at an early hour, and, burning with anxiety to look
forth once more from the summit of the hillock which the day before
brought me such luck, I made a hasty breakfast, and rode thither with
after-riders and my dogs. But, alas! I had allowed the golden
opportunity to slip. This day I sought in vain; and although I often
again ascended to the summit of my favorite hillock in that and in the
succeeding year, my eyes were destined never again to hail