in beautiful condition, and they excited the admiration of the entire
party. The perfection of workmanship did not appear to interest them so
much as the size of the bores. They thrust their fingers down each
muzzle, until they at last came to the "Baby," when, finding that two
fingers could be easily introduced, they at once fell in love with that
rifle in particular.

On the 17th of August, accompanied by the German, Florian, we said
good-by to our kind friend Sheik Achmet and left Wat el Negur. At Geera,
early at daybreak, several Arabs arrived with a report that elephants
had been drinking in the river within half an hour's march of our
sleeping-place. I immediately started with my men, accompanied by
Florian, and we shortly arrived upon the tracks of the herd. I had three
Hamran Arabs as trackers, one of whom, Taher Noor, had engaged to
accompany us throughout the expedition.

For about eight miles we followed the spoor through high dried grass and
thorny bush, until we at length arrived at a dense jungle of kittar--the
most formidable of the hooked thorn mimosas. Here the tracks appeared to
wander, some elephants having travelled straight ahead, while others had
strayed to the right and left. For about two hours we travelled upon the
circuitous tracks of the elephants to no purpose, when we suddenly were
startled by the shrill trumpeting of one of these animals in the thick
thorns, a few hundred yards to our left. The ground was so intensely
hard and dry that it was impossible to distinguish the new tracks from
the old, which crossed and recrossed in all directions. I therefore
decided to walk carefully along the outskirts of the jungle, trusting to
find their place of entrance by the fresh broken boughs. In about an
hour we had thus examined two or three miles, without discovering a clew
to their recent path, when we turned round a clump of bushes, and