mostly
about elephants and elephant hunting; and as we may learn much about the
habits of this singular animal, and the method of hunting it adopted by
the Africans, we will relate some of the anecdotes connected therewith.

"You ask me where I shot my first elephant," said Hofman. "It was where
few men now hunt elephants, because there are not many there now, and
because it is a dangerous place to hunt them in. It was in the
Fish-river bush in the old colony. That bush, as you know, is very
thick and thorny, and if they would only lie close, and didn't leave a
footmark, a hundred elephants might live there peaceably for years even
now; but when I was quite a boy there were not many men could say they
had walked ten miles in the Fish-river bush. My father used to go down
to Graham's Town about twice a year to get various things he wanted, and
when he went he generally took me. I was little more than fifteen when
he went down on the occasion I will tell you of.

"We had to pass the Fish-river bush on the way from our place down to
Graham's Town, and as we were going along I saw near the road,--or
rather waggon-track, for it was nothing more,--a broken tree. I turned
into the bush to look, and then saw what I knew was the spoor of an
elephant. I didn't say what I had seen, for all of a sudden I got very
ambitious, and I thought I would make myself a name, and not be thought
a boy any longer. I knew that we outspanned about half a mile further
on, and as the day was very hot, I asked my father if he would go on
after a short outspan, or wait a bit.

"`I'll wait till near sundown,' he replied, `for it is full moon
to-night, and we can trek better in the night than in this heat, and we
can sleep a little now.'

"`I'd rather go and shoot,' said I, `if you'd lend me your big gun.'

"`What do you want the big gun for?' inquired my father. `That is for
elephants or rhinoster, and you will find nothing bigger than a buck.'

"`I can always shoot better with that big gun,' I replied.

"`Very well,' said my father. `Don't lose yourself in the bush; but you
can't do that with the sun shining as it is.'

"`I'd like Blueboy to come with me, father; he'd carry my buck.'

"Now Blueboy was a bush-boy who was _fore-looper_ [Fore-looper is the
leader of the team of oxen; he holds a string fastened to the horns of
the first two.] to the oxen sometimes, and who had taught me more
spooring than any one else, and I wanted to