On the 20th we travelled two marches to Las Damel, and thence to Garabad. On reaching this place at noon, I found a very large herd of oryx feeding on either side of the caravan route, and shot three. On the first shot the herd, instead of running away, charged up round the wounded one as they do when hunted with dogs; and reloading, by a quick right and left, I was able to bag a second and third animal. A great deal of the meat was eaten by the men, and the rest was sun-dried for future consumption.
The valley of Daghatto, on the Gálla border, said to be swarming with elephants, was now only ten miles on the west of us. So halting at Garabad, I sent Géli and two Malingúr guides, who had joined us, into the Daghatto Valley to see what they could find; and they returned at night showing pieces of freshly-chewed aloe, and reporting that they had seen an elephant.
We marched into the Daghatto Valley next morning, passing between low, flat-topped hills, and camped in thick umbrella mimósas, forming a strong zeríba with felled trees, as our guides reported the country dangerous. The jungle descended gradually to the Daghatto stream, which was a mile to the west of us, its course being north and south. It has its source in the Harar Highlands, and flows towards the Webbe. Where we struck the stream it had cut its way through very wild and hilly country, said to harbour Gálla marauders.
Directly the camp had been pitched I organised a small hunting caravan, consisting of the three fast camels, the mule, and six men, with food for two days. We set off at once, and soon reached the Daghatto stream. We found it to be an exquisitely beautiful little river, overshadowed by very large and wild forest, with hanging masses of creeper, there being a carpet of rich grass. Footprints of elephants of different dates were everywhere visible in the earth, and stems of trees were broken, or the trees uprooted and overturned by the herds, as they had fed along parallel to the course of the stream. Some of the tracks in the soft mud close to the stream were holes two feet deep. There was a deep and rapid current, which prevented our crossing with the camels, but we held along the eastern bank, going up stream, towards the north.
We found evidences of a large bull elephant having bathed and fed about on the night before, and taking up his tracks for two or three miles, the footprints which we had been following were joined by those of several others, and soon the whole country seemed to be covered with traces of elephants, trees being denuded of the branches or overturned at various dates, and it became evident that a large herd was in the valley with us, and had been there for some days.
I sent Hassan Midgán and a Malingúr guide along the river bank to reconnoitre, and ordered them to work round and join us, when the height of the sun should indicate noon, at a little hill visible above the sea of forest two or three miles on ahead. Mounting the mule I made straight for this landmark with Géli and Daura, directing Abokr and a camelman to bring on the three camels slowly behind us.
Reaching the hillock I cautiously climbed to the top, and began examining the expanse of flat, green tree-tops, to try and discover the game.
Daura began dancing about and snapping his fingers with pleasure, and pointed to some reddish brown spots among the topmost branches of a thorn-tree half a mile away; and looking long and carefully, I saw one of the red patches move just once, backward and forward. We knew then that what we saw were elephants’ ears. While we were still looking we heard the scream of an elephant, and the patches of red were raised above the foliage as the owners moved together through the jungle, pressing on one another, their course marked by the great swinging ears.
Soon they stopped, and stood bunched together to listen, and we knew that they had seen or winded the two men whom I had sent round to the left an hour ago.
This was awkward, but I ran hard for the line I thought they would take when they should resume their retreat; and getting into a thick patch of jungle, with Géli in attendance, I waited, hiding my body behind the stem of a tree, the wind blowing in our faces from where the elephants had last been seen. On they came, passing us at a great pace, and letting them go by, I fired at the ear of the largest, thirty yards away, a loud crack answering the report of the four-bore. They only screamed and redoubled their pace, and I ran on in their wake, half smothered in the cloud of dust they had raised.