her trunk, prepared to charge us as we
came up. But at that moment she heard the scream of her calf, and rushed
back to its assistance, only to be bogged with the others.

Such a scene I never saw before or since. The swamp was spotted all
over with the large forms of the elephants, and the air rang with their
screams of rage and terror as they waved their trunks wildly to and fro.
Now and then a monster would make a great effort and drag his mass from
its peaty bed, only to stick fast again at the next step. It was a most
pitiable sight, though one that gladdened the hearts of my men. Even the
best natives have little compassion for the sufferings of animals.

Well, the rest was easy. The marsh that would not bear the elephants
carried our weight well enough. Before midnight all were dead, for we
shot them by moonlight. I would gladly have spared the young ones and
some of the cows, but to do so would only have meant leaving them to
perish of hunger; it was kinder to kill them at once. The wounded bull I
slew with my own hand, and I cannot say that I felt much compunction in
so doing. He knew me again, and made a desperate effort to get at me,
but I am glad to say that the peat held him fast.

The pan presented a curious sight when the sun rose next morning. Owing
to the support given by the soil, few of the dead elephants had fallen:
there they stood as though they were asleep.

I sent back for the waggons, and when they arrived on the morrow, formed
a camp, about a mile away from the pan. Then began the work of cutting
out the elephants' tusks; it took over a week, and for obvious reasons
was a disgusting task. Indeed, had it not been for the help of some
wandering bushmen, who took their pay in elephant meat, I do not think
we could ever have managed it.

At last it was done. The ivory was far too cumbersome for us to carry,
so we buried it, having first got rid of our bushmen allies. My boys
wanted me to go back to the Cape with it and sell it, but I was too much
bent on my journey to do this. The tusks lay buried for five years. Then
I came and dug them up; they were but little harmed. Ultimately I sold
the ivory for something over twelve hundred pounds--not bad pay for one
day's shooting.

This was how I began my career as an elephant hunter. I have shot many
hundreds of them since, but have never again attempted to do so on
horseback.

CHAPTER IV

THE ZULU IMPI

After burying the elephant tusks,