While engaged in determining the path of the herd, we observed
four giraffes at about half a mile distant, but they had already
perceived us, and were in full flight. For about two hours we
travelled upon the circuitous tracks of the elephants to no
purpose, when we suddenly were startled by the shrill trumpet 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 clue to their recent path, when we turned round a
clump of bushes, and suddenly came in view of two grand
elephants, standing at the edge of the dense thorns; having our
wind, they vanished instantly into the the jungle. We could not
follow them, as their course was down wind; we therefore made a
circuit to leeward for about a mile, and, finding that the
elephants had not crossed in that direction, we felt sure that we
must come upon them with the wind in our favour should they still
be within the thorny jungle; this was certain, as it was their
favourite retreat.
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