The elephants, who buried themselves in the most gloomy places during the heat of the sun, stalked about boldly, and took their pleasure during the moonlight. Night after night I rode round the skirts of the bush, moving from one of their fashionable watering places to another, and hanging about the well-worn walks with a praiseworthy perseverance. They were always too cunning for me, and either smelt my approach and dashed away before I could get a shot, or remained inside the cover and grumbled their displeasure, or trumpeted forth a challenge from a stronghold situated a couple of hundred yards within the forest. Finding that they were too wide awake to give a chance by this plan of pursuit, I selected a fine large tree, and taking my desponding friend as a volunteer, we perched ourselves amongst its branches, at about ten o'clock at night. Scarcely had half an hour of silence passed, than my partner voted it a nuisance not being able to smoke; shortly after he complained a little of cramp; and in about an hour voted the whole thing a wild-goose sort of chase, and came to the conclusion that we might as well go home. Seeing great difficulty in maintaining the perfect silence that was so necessary to success, I agreed with him, and we descended the tree. The walk through the strip of bush, that was dark as Erebus, was anything but pleasant, from the briars and branches scratching face and hands, to say nothing of the chance of finding oneself suddenly lifted up by the trunk of some artful elephant, who might playfully put his foot upon the small of your back by way of caution. We reached our respective homes without an adventure, and on the following day I was pleased to find that the elephants had not been near our tree during the whole night, although the spoor showed that they came in great numbers exactly under it on the morning.