We at least demanded that we ought to see what we were hunting rather than blindly stumble through dense bush with elephants all around us.

So we beat a masterly retreat, not without two more serious threats from the hidden elephants.

A boy was sent up a tree to try to locate the elephants, but even up there it was impossible to distinguish anything in the mass of vegetation around.

We fired guns to frighten away the animals, but at each report there was only a restless rustle in the brush that said that they were still there and waiting, perhaps as badly scared as we were.
My second elephant experience came the next day.
We started forth again, with a single tent, our guides and gunbearers, a cook and a couple of tent boys and twenty porters.

This time we politely ignored all elephant trails in the dense bush and pushed on through the forest.