exploded; it had then passed through the stomach and the lower portion
of the lungs, both of which were terribly shattered; and breaking one of
the fore-ribs on the left side, it had lodged beneath the skin of the
shoulder. This was irresistible work, and the elephant had evidently
dropped in a few minutes after having received the shell.

A most interesting fact had occurred. I noticed an old wound unhealed
and full of matter in the front of the left shoulder. The bowels were
shot through, and were green in various places. Florian suggested that
it must be an elephant that I had wounded at Wat el Negur; we tracked
the course of the bullet most carefully, until we at length discovered
my unmistakable bullet of quicksilver and lead, almost uninjured, in the
fleshy part of the thigh, imbedded in an unhealed wound. Thus, by a
curious chance, upon my first interview with African elephants by
daylight, I had killed the identical elephant that I had wounded at Wat
el Negur forty-three days before in the dhurra plantation, twenty-eight
miles distant!



CHAPTER VII.

The start from Geera--Feats of horsemanship--A curious chase-- Abou Do
wins a race--Capturing a young buffalo--Our island camp--Tales of the
Base.

We started from Geera on the 23d of December, with our party complete.
The Hamran sword-hunters were Abou Do, Jali, and Suleiman. My chief
tracker was Taher Noor, who, although a good hunter, was not a
professional aggahr, and I was accompanied by the father of Abou Do, who