went forward cautiously, to exclaim our surprise when we found a great cow elephant dead—killed by one of our first shots—and a young bull fatally wounded beside her. The wounded animal was dispatched, and, after some trouble, and assurances that there was not another elephant alive in Africa, we persuaded the black boys to venture down, and to start cutting out the tusks from the skull base with their long-bladed, heavy, wood-chopping knives. I left them, then, to get under the shade of a tree, and to roll myself in my blanket, for by this time I was absolutely exhausted, and in high fever. Water had been found near-by, and I had given orders that we would camp here till the morning. I hazily remember looking out of my blanket about 5 p.m., when the sun was lowering, to see the tusk trophies lying close to me and the native boys, “happy as kings,” smoking huge pieces of elephant trunk, placed on bamboo racks over well-fed fires. Next day, in the morning before we moved on, troops of natives began to arrive from the hills to cut up, and smoke, and part roast, the elephant meat—to carry it off, when ready, to their homes. It was good to see their simple rejoicing at securing such plentiful food. On one other occasion I ran across elephants when on reconnaissance work. This was about six miles south-west of Kissaki, at hot springs at the northern end of Magi-ya-Weta hill. I had been out looking over the country, with the view to finding a road route, when I found that large herds of elephant had been recently at the water below the springs, and in some places had wrecked the bush-forest when feeding—for an elephant, if wanting to reach the upper growth, thinks nothing of grasping a tree-trunk, and pulling downwards with his mighty weight (a large elephant weighs about seven tons) until the tree, which has commonly a diameter of six to eight inches, snaps off like a broken match, a yard or two above the ground. On my return to camp from reconnaissance I happily received permission to go out again in quest of the elephants; and set out next day with my fellow-officer, Martin Ryan—a Rhodesian, who was an experienced elephant hunter. KISSAKI, _5th Dec._ [Sidenote: AN ELEPHANT HUNT] [Sidenote: TWO FINE ELEPHANTS KILLED]