path. The grass was high, but I rode through it to
within about forty yards before I was observed; they
immediately dashed away, and I followed for about a
mile at a trot, the ground being so full of holes and
covered with fallen trees, concealed > * in the higo h og rass,7
that I did not. like to close until I should arrive in a
more favourable spot. At length I shot at full gallop
past an immense fellow, with tusks about five feet projecting
from his jaws, and reining up, I fired with a
■Reilly No. 10 at the shoulder. He charged straight
into me at the sound of the shot. My horse, Filfil,
was utterly unfit for a hunter, as he went perfectly mad
at the report of a gun fired from his back, and at the
moment of the discharge he reared perpendicularly ;
the weight, and the recoil of the rifle, added to the
sudden rearing of the horse, unseated me, and I fell,
rifle in hand, backwards over his hind-quarters at the
moment the elephant rushed in full charge upon the
horse. Away went “ Filfil,” leaving me upon the
ground in a most inglorious position; and, fortunately,
the grass being high, the elephant lost sight of me
and. followed the horse instead of giving me his
attention.
My horse was lost; my man had never even accompanied
me, having lagged behind at the very commencement
of the hunt. I had lost my rifle in the
high grass, as I had been forced to make a short run
from the spot before I knew that the elephant had followed
the horse; thus I was nearly an hour before I
found it, and also my azimuth compass that had fallen
from my belt pouch. After much shouting and
whistling, my mounted man arrived, and making him
dismount I rode my little horse Mouse, and returned
to the path. My horse Filfil was lost. As a rule,
hunting during the march should be avoided, and I
had now paid dearly for the indiscretion.
I reached the Atabbi river about eighteen miles from
Obbo. This is a fine perennial stream flowing from
the Madi mountains towards the west, forming an
affluent of the Asua river. There was a good ford
with a hard gravel and rocky bottom, over which the
horse partly waded and occasionally swam. There
were fresh tracks of immense herds of elephants with
which the country abounded, and I heard them trumpeting
in the distance. Ascending rising ground in
perfectly open prairie on the opposite side^ of the
Atabbi, I saw a dense herd of about two hundred elephants—
they were about a mile distant and were moving
slowly through the high grass. Just as I was riding
along the path watching the immense herd, a Tetel
(hartebeest) sprang from the grass in which he had
been concealed, and fortunately he galloped across a