Mr. Baker was far away on my right; and Abd-el-Kader was upon the extreme right flank.
Everything was ready, and men had already been stationed at regular intervals about two miles to windward, where they waited with their fire-stick for the appointed signal.
A shrill whistle disturbed the silence. This signal was repeated at intervals to windward.
In a few minutes after the signal, a long line of separate thin pillars of smoke ascended into the blue sky, forming a band extending over about two miles of the horizon.
The thin pillars rapidly thickened, and became dense volumes, until at length they united, and formed a long black cloud of smoke that drifted before the wind over the bright yellow surface of the high grass.
The natives were so thoroughly concealed, that no one would have supposed that a human being beside ourselves was in the neighbourhood. I had stuck a few twigs into the top of the ant-hill to hide my cap; and having cut out a step in the side for my feet at the required height, I waited in patience.
The wind was brisk, and the fire travelled at about four miles an hour. We could soon hear the distant roar, as the great volume of flame shot high through the centre of the smoke.
The natives had also lighted the grass a few hundred yards in our rear.
Presently I saw a slate-coloured mass trotting along the face of the opposite slope, about 250 yards distant. I quickly made out a rhinoceros, and I was in hopes that he was coming towards me. Suddenly he turned to my right, and continued along the face of the inclination.
Some of the beautiful leucotis antelope now appeared and cantered towards me, but halted when they approached the stream, and listened. The game understood the hunting as well as the natives. In the same manner that the young children went out to hunt with their parents, so had the wild animals been hunted together with their parents ever since their birth.