During the progress of dinner I planned the work for the day following.

We were now eight miles from Nielgalla (Blue Rock), the village at which Banda resided, and I ordered a man to start off at daybreak to tell him that I was in his country, and to bring old Medima and several other good men (that I knew) to the tent without delay.

I proposed that we should, in the meantime, start at daylight on the tracks of the two elephants that we had seen upon the hills, taking Wallace and a few of the best coolies as gun-bearers.
Wallace is a Cochin man, who prides himself upon a mixture of Portuguese blood.

He speaks six different languages fluently, and is without exception the best interpreter and the most plucky gun-bearer that I have ever seen.

He has accompanied me through so many scenes with unvarying firmness that I never have the slightest anxiety about my spare guns if he is there, as he keeps the little troop of gun-bearers in their places in a most methodical manner.
At break of day on the following morning we were upon the tracks of the two elephants, but a slight shower during the night had so destroyed them that we found it was impossible to follow them up.