On the return journey, after descending from the highest ranges, and when drawing away from the last of the cultivated area, the party encountered a small herd of elephant feeding amongst bamboos, and loudly breaking their way along a wide valley bottom. Taylor and I, both armed with ·303 rifles, cut off the track and went to try to get a shot at the beasts—both very keen to bag an elephant. Successfully we worked up-wind on them, and finally drew near to two animals partly hidden in the fringe of the bamboo belt. I doubted the killing capacity of our rifles, but, when we fired, it transpired that both animals dropped—though in the thick cover, for the moment, we couldn’t be sure of the full effect of our shots—one dead, and the other emitting the most dreadful trumpet blasts, that echoed and re-echoed, like thunder, in the enclosed valley. The wounded animal could, apparently, not run away, but we dared not, meantime, go any nearer to him, in case he should charge us down in the tall, tangled grass, where, for us, running was well-nigh impossible. Therefore we decided to leave him for a time, and return to where we had left Wilson and the porters. We found our porter loads scattered broadcast on the track, but not a black was to be seen, for, at the trumpeting of the wounded elephant, they had scattered and fled in mortal terror. Wilson, who was armed with a revolver only, and could not take part in the shooting, in the midst of the uproar had been, while standing on the track, almost knocked down by the rush past of a startled Waterbuck. We shouted for the porters, and, one by one, they appeared, reluctantly, from various directions, to be chaffed and laughed at. They were all wildly excited when we said we had one or two elephants shot, and lying in the bamboos below. Taylor and I had both been suffering from malaria throughout the day—brought out by the cold in the hills—so we decided on a drink of tea to refresh us, and hurried the boys about it, while excited talk ran high. Twenty minutes later, though we could still hear an occasional movement in the bamboos, we decided to venture down to our quarry, but nothing on earth would tempt any of the blacks to come. Soon I saw our quarry, badly wounded, but still able to move about a bit. A moment later I put the elephant down like a log, with a fatal bullet, and we could hear him venting great sobbing breaths as life gave out. We now ventured close up, and saw him lying on his side with all legs out. Now and again his huge head raised, but only to relax to the ground again. By and by he was quite still, and then we went up to him. We were looking at him, highly delighted, since it was our first elephant, when Wilson cried “Look out!” pointing, as he did so, to our right. We wheeled round to see, indistinctly through the canes and grass, the head and the great forward-thrust ears of an elephant quite close to us—I fired, and again rang out that appalling trumpet cry. Soon, as all was quiet, we