Well, the rest was easy.  The marsh that would not bear the elephants carried our weight well enough.  Before midnight all were dead, for we shot them by moonlight.  I would gladly have spared the young ones and some of the cows, but to do so would only have meant leaving them to perish of hunger; it was kinder to kill them at once.  The wounded bull I slew with my own hand, and I cannot say that I felt much compunction in so doing.  He knew me again, and made a desperate effort to get at me, but I am glad to say that the peat held him fast.

The pan presented a curious sight when the sun rose next morning.  Owing to the support given by the soil, few of the dead elephants had fallen:  there they stood as though they were asleep.

I sent back for the waggons, and when they arrived on the morrow, formed a camp, about a mile away from the pan.  Then began the work of cutting out the elephants’ tusks; it took over a week, and for obvious reasons was a disgusting task.  Indeed, had it not been for the help of some wandering bushmen, who took their pay in elephant meat, I do not think we could ever have managed it.

At last it was done.  The ivory was far too cumbersome for us to carry, so we buried it, having first got rid of our bushmen allies.  My boys wanted me to go back to the Cape with it and sell it, but I was too much bent on my journey to do this.  The tusks lay buried for five years.  Then I came and dug them up; they were but little harmed.  Ultimately I sold the ivory for something over twelve hundred pounds—­not bad pay for one day’s shooting.

This was how I began my career as an elephant hunter.  I have shot many hundreds of them since, but have never again attempted to do so on horseback.

CHAPTER IV

THE ZULU IMPI

After burying the elephant tusks, and having taken careful notes of the bearings and peculiarities of the country so that I might be able to find the spot again, we proceeded on our journey.  For a month or more I trekked along the line which now divides the Orange Free State from Griqualand West, and the Transvaal from Bechuanaland.  The only difficulties met with were such as are still common to African travellers—­occasional want of water and troubles about crossing sluits and rivers.  I remember that I outspanned on the spot where Kimberley now stands, and had to press on again in a hurry because there was no water.  I little dreamed then that I should live to see Kimberley a great city producing millions of pounds worth of diamonds annually, and old Indaba-zimbi’s magic cannot have been worth so much after all, or he would have told me.