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has a gun to carry, more for his own satisfaction than use, as he is a
miserable shot, and requires a longer time to aim than an artilleryman
would take to lay a mortar. From his professor-like skill, however, in
silent walking, he could, when sent out alone, often shoot and bring
home one of the three sort of bush-buck that frequented this region.
When he accompanied me, it was entirely for the purpose of carrying
anything that I might shoot.

The part chosen for this sport was generally the most open in the bush,
and the least crowded with underwood. In time I had my separate beats,
and used to draw them as regularly as hounds draw their respective
covers. Dress is a most important part in these excursions: the
trousers of the country, made of untanned leather, and termed crackers,
are very good; a long jacket of dark blue or green is better, but a dark
dull red is even more killing; the _veld-schoens_ (shoes) worn by the
Dutch are certainly far superior to any other boot or shoe I ever saw;
they are comfortable, soft, and silent, not unlike the mocassin. Having
entered a few yards in the path chosen, which should be one well-worn by
the elephants, it is advisable to wait a few minutes and listen, to be
certain that all is going on right: the stealthy advance then commences.

The first thing to be done is to look where the foot that you are going
to advance can be placed. If any dried sticks or leaves are in the way,
the greatest care must be taken, for the cracking or crushing of either
would alarm the bush for miles. This may seem giving too much
importance to the matter; but the case is thus: the animals that live
here trust to their sense of hearing and smelling more than to their
sight; a slight collateral circumstance, if I may so term it, also
alarms their naturally suspicious nature. A buck may be forty yards
from you unseen; your tread is heard; he takes the alarm, and bounds
off, giving, as he goes, that warning whistle that every bush-hunter
detests. Others on his line of retreat take up the panic, and, for I
may say a mile at least, the crack caused by your incautious tread is,
as it were, telegraphed. This watchfulness of the bucks, etc., easily
accounts for the _absence_ of game complained of by every tyro in
bush-shooting. We will suppose that our advance has been conducted
without a cracking or crushing of leaves or sticks, and we come to a
branch which has been broken by elephants, and l