f the whole band may be described in
the language of Sandy Black, who, beholding his friends after the fray,
remarked that they were all "dirty and drookit."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

TREATS OF MATTERS TOO NUMEROUS AND STIRRING TO BE BRIEFLY REFERRED TO.

Soon after this the explorers passed beyond the level country, and their
sufferings were for the time relieved. The region through which they
then passed was varied--hilly, wooded, and beautiful, and, to crown all,
water was plentiful. Large game was also abundant, and one day the
footprints of elephants were discovered.

To some of the party that day was one of deepest interest and
excitement.

Charlie Considine, who was, as we have said, an adept with the pencil,
longed to sit down and sketch the lordly elephant in his native haunts.
Andrew Rivers and Jerry Goldboy wanted to shoot him, so did George
Rennie and the Mullers and Lucas Van Dyk. More moderate souls, like
Sandy Black, said they would be satisfied merely to _see_ him, while
Slinger and Dikkop, with their brethren, declared that they wanted to
_eat_ him.

At last they came in sight of him! It was a little after mid-day. They
were traversing at the time a jungle so dense that it would have been
impassable but for a Kafir-path which had been kept open by wild
animals. The hunters had already seen herds of quaggas, and buffaloes,
and some of the larger sorts of antelopes, also one rhinoceros, but not
yet elephants. Now, to their joy, the giant tracks of these monsters
were discovered. Near the river, in swampy places, it was evident that
some of them had been rolling luxuriously in the ooze and mud. But it
was in the forests and jungles that they had left the most striking
marks of their habits and mighty power, for there thorny brakes of the
most impenetrable character had been trodden flat by them, and trees had
been overturned. In traversing such places the great bull-elephant
always marches in the van, bursting through everything by sheer force
and weight, breaking off huge limbs of the larger trees with his
proboscis when these obstruct his path, and overturning the smaller ones
bodily, while the females and younger members of the family follow in
his wake.

A little further on they came to a piece of open ground where the
elephants had torn up a number of mimosa-trees and inverted them so that
they might the more easily browse on the juicy roots. It was evident
from appearances that th