When we had travelled for the best part of an hour down the valley, all of a sudden we came upon the whole herd, which numbered a 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 at the same moment as we saw them, and inwardly I was filled with fears lest they should take it into their heads to charge back up the gully.

But they did not; trumpeting aloud, they rushed at the thick bush which went down before them like corn before a sickle.

I do not think that in all my experiences I ever heard anything to equal the sound they made as they crashed through and over the shrubs and trees.
Before them was a dense forest belt from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in width.

As they rushed on, it fell, so that behind them was nothing but a level roadway strewed with fallen trunks, crushed branches, and here and there a tree, too strong even for them, left stranded amid the wreck.

On they went, and, notwithstanding the nature of the ground over which they had to travel, they kept their distance ahead of us.