ered the feeding of an elephant inaudible, or the rush of a wild
beast undistinguishable from the rustling of the forest branches. Hans
had sent one of his Kaffirs to the waggons, to announce to the men there
the death of four elephants, and to bring such aid as was requisite to
cut out the tusks, and convey them to the waggons. He then with his
white companions started on his footsteps of the previous night towards
the ground where his elephants had fallen. Having with him a hatchet
and knife, and aided by 'Nquane and his friend Bernhard, he proceeded to
extract the tusks of his first elephant. The animal had fallen
backwards, so that it lay in a very good attitude to be operated on; and
Hans, taking his hatchet, cut down each side of the elephant's trunk, so
that at last this appendage could be turned completely over its head.
The roots of the tusks were thus exposed to view, and were next attacked
with the hatchet, the ends fixed in the jaws being loosened and cut off,
by means of a fulcrum made from a large branch of a tree. The tusks
were then worked up and down, and the hatchet applied to sever those
parts which held most tenaciously, until the tusks were quite loose in
the jaw, and could then be extracted with a good pull. About one-third
of an elephant's tusk is embedded in its jaw, and this part being filled
up with muscles and nerves is hollow, and has to be cleaned out before
it is inserted in the waggon. A tooth, as a tusk is called by elephant
hunters, weighs about ten per cent, heavier when it is first taken from
an elephant's jaw, than when it becomes dry from keeping. Very few
elephants' tusks exceed 100 pounds in weight each, the average size of a
good pair of tusks being from 100 to 150 pounds. Sometimes, however, a
marvellous old bull, or one who has developed his teeth in a wonderful
way, is found, whose teeth weigh nearly 130 pounds each; but such
patriarchs are rarely met with.

The country in which elephants are found in abundance is usually thinly
inhabited, and the natives are not possessed of fire-arms in great
abundance or of much value. Thus the elephant, being a dangerous animal
to hunt and hard to kill, often remains in forests when the more timid
game of the open country has been driven away. But when English or
Dutch sportsmen have visited a country, they usually wound mortally many
more elephants than they kill and find, and thus the Kaffirs, who follow
up and find the wounded