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..