The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1890-03-19

See the tree was coming. and there, with
in three feet of my head. was the great
brown trunk Of the elephant Iplaced
the muzzle of the pistol within an inch
of it and fired The result was instanta-
neous. Down sunk the tree again, Civ
ing one of my legs considerable
squeeze, and the next instant heard a
crashing sound The elephant had
bolted.
; BY this time. what between fright and
struggling, was pretty we'll done. l
cannot remember how got from under
the fallen tree, or indeed any thing, until
l found myself sitting on the ground
drinking some peach brandy from a
flask, and old lndaba- zimbi opposite me
nodding his white lock sagely, while he
fired off moral reflections on the narrow
ness OF my escape, and my unwisdom in
not having taken his advice to 60 on
foot. That reminded me Of my horse
IgOt up and went to look at it. 1t was
quite dead the blow of the elephants
trunk had fallen on the saddle, breaking
the framework and rendering it useless.
l reflected that in another two seconds
it would have fallen on me. I called to
Indaba-zimbi and asked which way the
elephants had gone
"There!" he said, pointing down the
gully, ''and we had better go after them,
Macumazahn. We have had the bad
luck, now for the good"
There was philosophy in this, though,
to tell the truth, | did not feel particu-
Iarly keen on elephants at the moment
| seemed to have had enough of them
However, it would never do to show the
white feather before the boys. SO | as
scented with much outward readiness,
and we started, on the second horse
and the others on foot. When we had
travelled for the best part OF an hour
down the valley, all of Il sudden we
came upon the whole herd. which num-
bered little more than eighty. Just in
front Of them the bush was SO thick that
they seemed to- hesitate about entering
it, and the sides of the valley were so
rocky and steep at this point that they
could not climb them.
! They saw us st the same moment as we
saw them. and inwardly was filled with
fears lest they should take it into their
heads to- large back up the gully But
they did not: tr,tmpetins aloud they
rushed at the thick bush which went
down before them like corn before a
sickle. do not think that i'm all my ex-
periences ever heard anything to equal
the sound they made as they crashed
through and over the shrubs and trees
Before them was dense forest belt from
a hundred to a. hundred and fifty feet in
width. AS they rushed on it fell, so that be-
hind them was nothing but level road
way strewn with. fallen trunks. crushed
branches, and here and there tree, too
strong even for them, left standing amid
the wreck. On they went. and, notwith-
standing the nature of the ground over
which they had to travel, they kept their
distance ahead of u.s. This sort of thing
continued for mile or more, and then
saw that in front of the elephants the val
ley opened into space covered with
reeds and grass-it might have been five
or six acres in extent-beyond which the
valley ran on again.
The herd reached the edge of this ex-
panse, and for a moment pulled up, hes
itating evidently they mistrusted it,
My men yelled aloud, as only Kaffirs
can. and that settled them Headed bv
the wounded bull. whose martial ardor,
like my own, was somewhat cooled, they
spread out and dashed into the treacher-
Gus swamp, for such it was. though just