As I was straining my eyes to catch a glimpse of the glittering ivories, and thereby to judge the position of the elephant's shoulder, I fancied that the step did not appear like an elephant's. The moon was not yet up, consequently we could see but indistinctly. Somehow the thought came across me that perhaps other sportsmen had also come out to try for a shot, and I called immediately to F. "For God's sake don't fire--it is a man on horseback." He said something about "nonsense, it can't be." I called again, rather louder, for him not to fire; and as I did so a roar of laughter came from one of the supposed elephants, find "Sold, old fellow," was facetiously remarked by the other. I was very angry at being thus disturbed, and still more so when I found out the real state of the case. It seemed that, after we left the dinner-table, the first glass of brandy and water (which generally supplies the place of claret or port in Africa) had caused these two gentlemen to decide that our night-ride was ridiculous; the second had proved us two absolute donkeys; the third that we _ought_ to be sold. I don't know how many, more or less, it had taken to decide the plan, which was, that they would mount their horses, and ride out to where we were waiting, and discover our hiding-place _without our knowing of their approach_, and then commence imitating noises that were to make us think they were elephants! Upon my assuring these gentlemen that a large troop of elephants was really in the bush close by, they either could not or would not believe it, and easily satisfied themselves that their opinion was right; as, after listening a minute or so, and riding round a little way, they declared they only heard a crack of some sort in the bush, and had not seen a single elephant, and that the noises we said we had heard must have been caused by our imagination. Our opinion had been formed from half an hour's careful listening, _theirs_ from two minutes noisy looking round. Is there any self-sufficiency in this sort of conclusions I wonder? I may here relate a ridiculous mistake that I made, and a narrow escape of Kaffir slaughter, both caused by my eagerness for a fine specimen of the black bush-buck. I have before mentioned one or two little open patches on the top of the Berea. I was riding over these one afternoon, looking for fresh elephant spoor, when I saw, about two hundred yards distant, a black object just visible in the long grass, and there was no doubt in my mind that it was a black bush-buck. I dropped off my horse, and stalked with the greatest care to within about eighty yards of it; I suddenly raised my head to get a peep, and saw only a black back, and recognised a little movement in the tail, which was very buck-like. The object was partly hidden by bushes and grass; the spot was most retired.