his focus, Hans took a careful look all
round, and at length rested his glass against a tree and looked steadily
down near the stream of which we have spoken. After a careful
examination he offered his glass to a companion, and said, "I see eight
or nine large bull elephants near the mimosas beside those yellow-wood
trees. Can you see more?"

CHAPTER THREE.

THE BULL ELEPHANT--THE CHARGE OF THE ELEPHANTS--COUNTING THE SPOILS.

O ye lovers of true sport, men of nerve and skill, ye who prize a
reality and are not satisfied with a feeble imitation, have you ever
attempted to realise the excitement and glory of combating with a herd
of lordly elephants, fierce and powerful, and monarchs in their own
forests? Ye, who consider that _the_ only sport is pursuing a fleeing
fox over the grass-lands of your own country, can but feebly imagine the
effect produced by measuring your skill and daring against the giant
strength and cunning of a mighty elephant, who has braved his hundred
summers, and has been able to withstand the bullets or spears of a
hundred foes; who has won his way among his rivals by fierce and hardly
contested battles; and who dreads no enemy, but is ever ready to try
conclusions with the most formidable of all, viz. man. To stand alone
and on foot, amidst the tangled luxuriant foliage of an African forest,
within a few yards of one of these watchful monsters, whose foot could
crush you as easily as could your foot a mouse or rat, and whose
headlong rush through the forest would carry away every obstacle, is a
proceeding which causes the blood to course through one's veins like
quicksilver. To hide near a troop of these animals, watching their
strange movements and taking advantage of favourable opportunities for
deadly shots, which are answered by the most savage and unearthly
shrieks, is another phase of sport which is spirit-stirring in the
extreme. Add to these scenes the most glowing landscape, covered with
brilliant flowers, and ornamented with gorgeously-tinted birds, whilst
various rare and graceful antelopes are bounding away in all directions
to escape the tumult which has disturbed them, and there is an
explanation of the mystery of that so-called hunter's fever, which
induces those who have once tasted such sport to ever afterwards thirst
for it as the parched stag thirsts for water.

Surrounding Hans Sterk there were men who had slain lions and buffaloes,
had brought to the earth the