The elephant then halted; and turning the horse's head, I again faced him and reloaded. I thought he was dying, as he stood with trunk drooping, and ears closely pressed back upon his neck. Just at this moment I heard the rush of elephants advancing through the green bush upon the rising ground above the hollow formed by the open space of high withered grass in which we were standing facing each other. My man Yaseen had bolted with his fleet horse at the first charge, and was not to be seen. Presently, the rushing sound increased, and the heads of a closely packed herd of about eighteen elephants showed above the low bushes, and they broke cover, bearing down directly upon me, both I and my horse being unobserved in the high grass. I never saw a more lovely sight; they were all bulls with immense tusks. Waiting until they were within twenty yards of me, I galloped straight at them, giving a yell that turned them. Away they rushed up the hill, but at so great a pace, that upon the rutty and broken ground I could not overtake them, and they completely distanced me. Tetel, although a wonderfully steady hunter, was an uncommonly slow horse, but upon this day he appeared to be slower than usual, and I was not at the time aware that he was seriously ill. By following three elephants separated from the herd I came up to them by a short cut, and singling out a fellow with enormous tusks, I rode straight at him. Finding himself overhauled, he charged me with such quickness and followed me up so far, that it was with the greatest difficulty that I cleared him. When he turned, I at once returned to the attack; but he entered a thick thorny jungle through which no horse could follow, and I failed to obtain a shot.