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
suddenly came in view of two grand elephants, standing at the edge of
the dense thorns. Having our wind, they vanished instantly into the
thick 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 favor should they still be
within the thorny jungle. This was certain, as it was their favorite
retreat.

With the greatest labor I led the way, creeping frequently upon my
hands and knees to avoid the hooks of the kittar bush, and occasionally
listening for a sound. At length, after upward of an hour passed in this
slow and fatiguing advance, I distinctly heard the flap of an elephant's
ear, shortly followed by the deep guttural sigh of one of those animals,
within a few paces; but so dense was the screen of jungle that I could
see nothing. We waited for some minutes, but not the slightest sound
could be heard; the elephants were aware of danger, and they were, like
ourselves, listening attentively for the first intimation of an enemy.

This was a highly exciting moment. Should they charge, there would not
be a possibility of esc