dismounted, and left our horses,
taking care to fasten them to a tree by the head-stalls, which are
generally allowed to remain on the head, either for the purpose of
fastening up a horse, or for knee-haltering him. M--(my friend) showed
me the fresh indications of the elephants. The grass was trodden down
in every direction, and in some places it was torn up, as though a heavy
piece of timber had been dragged along over it. One or two places,
which were destitute of grass and rather clayey, retained large circular
and oval-shaped impressions, which M--explained to me as belonging,--the
circular to the bull, and the oval to the cow-elephants; the height of
the respective elephant being about six times the diameter of these
impressions. We measured one footprint, which gave us an answer of
twelve feet, a height quite sufficient to satisfy the fastidious in this
sort of sport.

A strange mysterious feeling came over me in being thus brought for the
first time on the fresh traces of evidently a numerous herd of these
gigantic animals. I began to ask if it were not great impertinence for
two such pigmies as we now seemed, to attempt an attack upon at least
forty of these giants, who, by a swing of their trunks, or a stamp of
their foot on us, could have terminated our earthly career with as much
ease as we could that of an impertinent fly? There is also an utter
feeling of loneliness, and self-dependence, in treading the mazes of
these vast forests. One mile of bush always appeared to remove me
farther from man and his haunts than twenty miles of open country. One
is inspired with a kind of awe by the gloom and silence that pervade
these regions, the only sounds being the warning-note of some
hermit-bird, or the crack of a distant branch. The limited view around
also tends to keep every other sense on the alert, and the total absence
of every sign of man, or man's work, appears to draw one nearer to the
spirit-world, and to impress us with a greater sense of the Divine
presence.

Our advance was rather quick, as we did not pay sufficient attention to
the signs and noises as we approached the elephants. Scarcely thirty
yards had been gone over when I looked round to the spot where our
horses stood; the thickness of the intervening bush, however, prevented
me from seeing them. Several large branches had been broken off the
trees, the ends eaten, and then cast across the path in different
directions. Either in p