I immediately started with my men, accompanied by Florian, and we shortly arrived upon the tracks of the herd.

I had three Hamran Arabs as trackers, one of whom, Taher Noor, had engaged to accompany us throughout the expedition.
For about eight miles we followed the spoor through high dried grass and thorny bush, until we at length arrived at a dense jungle of kittar--the most formidable of the hooked thorn mimosas.

Here the tracks appeared to wander, some elephants having travelled straight ahead, while others had strayed to the right and left.

For about two hours we travelled upon the circuitous tracks of the elephants to no purpose, when we suddenly were startled by the shrill trumpeting of one of these animals in the thick thorns, a few hundred yards to our left.

The ground was so intensely hard and dry that it was impossible to distinguish the new tracks from the old, which crossed and recrossed in all directions.