When morning dawned, and I recollected that it was the day for the elephant hunt, in which Metilulu was to bear a part, I felt by no means easy in my mind respecting the meeting; but as it has always been my nature to put the best face on affairs, however gloomy, and to trust in that Providence which already had dealt so kindly by me, I placed a small kaross which had been given me over my shoulders, for my red seaman's shirt was now absolutely in rags, and, taking my breakfast, awaited news. The kraal was full of animation, occasioned, as I afterwards learned, by the fact that Metilulu had expressed his intention to bivouac out that night, so as to pay due honour to the elephant when killed. Tugela had been telling me, when he had been interrupted by the hubbub outside, that one way in which they entrapped elephants was by means of a pit-fall, such as that into which poor Grimes had stumbled; but this did not succeed long together, for these animals have such reasoning powers that after one or two of the herd have been thus caught, the rest become most wary, and always place an old, sagacious one in front, which carefully feels the ground with his foot before advancing, so that directly it touches the branches laid over to conceal the pit, he detects the deception and avoids it. The hunt which was to take place was to be of a different kind to this. The footprint of a remarkably fine elephant had been discovered, the tusks belonging to which evidently would be a prize to the slayer. I had already--as perhaps the reader may remember--expressed surprise as to how a Kaffir, finding these footprints, could find or track the elephant after some days had intervened. I now ascertained that the native, on coming across a foot-mark, took off the impression in soft clay; and so accurately do they manage this, that, among a hundred other prints, they can still keep to the one belonging to the animal they wish to kill. Tugela having joined me, with the intelligence that the hunters were about to start, I proceeded to the outside of the kraal, and was no little pleased to find Metilulu not there. As, however, I had understood he was to be present, I could not help making a cautious inquiry respecting his non-attendance, and heard that it was his royal pleasure to come on afterwards--meaning thereby, as I divined, before the day was over,--to be in, according to English fox-hunters' phraseology, at the death and the sumptuous feast of elephant feet. Having used my weapons to so good a purpose before, I was again accommodated with some assagais and a shield; thus, with my trousers worn down to knee-breeches, my boots long discarded, my browned stockingless feet, bronzed face, and the fur kaross over my shoulders, I really began to look very like the Kaffirs about me.