animals, drive a very fair trade in elephants'
tusks, of which they soon understand the true value. Thus a party of
hunters not unfrequently return from a three or four months'
shooting-trip into the interior with from two to three thousand pounds'
weight of ivory. There is, however, considerable risk in this sport
when looked at from its mercantile point of view. It may happen that
the country to which the hunters have travelled has been temporarily
deserted by elephants in consequence of hunters having just previously
hunted that ground, or from a scarcity of water. The horse or cattle
sickness may attack the hunter's quadrupeds, and thus, even if his
waggons be full, he may have to leave them behind whilst he returns some
four or five hundred miles to re-purchase cattle, again enter the
country, and find his waggons probably pillaged and burnt he knows not
by whom, his followers murdered, and he left to make the best of his way
home again. Thus a hunter's life is one of excitement and risk; and
though the profits are great at times, and the life one which has
irresistible charms, yet it is one not to be rashly undertaken by all
men. There are, too, very many small chiefs, whose friendship it is
necessary to gain by presents, or they will not allow you to journey
through their country; and sometimes small wars take place between these
potentates, when each party considers himself entitled to pillage all
travellers who have been on friendly terms with his enemy.

There are, then, a goodly array of dangers and difficulties surrounding
the African hunter, to say nothing of those which threaten him from wild
beasts, such as lions, leopards, etc., or poisonous snakes. So that it
is not difficult for a man as young even as Hans Sterk to gain a wide
reputation for skill and bravery in surmounting those obstacles to which
he had been frequently opposed.

The teeth of the various elephants slain by Hans having been extracted
from the jaws of the animals, placed on the shoulders of Kaffirs, marked
with Hans' mark, and despatched to the waggons, Hans led the way over
some bushy country towards a range of low hills near which a bright
silvery streak indicated that a stream of water was flowing.

"Before I look for spoor where I expect it," said Hans to his Dutch
companions, "I will look through my `far-seer'" (as he termed his
telescope), "to see what wilde there is in the open country."

Adjusting his telescope to suit