nine o'clock
After swallowing a little breakfast we started , Umbopa , Khiva , and Ventvögel accompanying us . The other Kafirs we left with instructions to skin the lion and the sable antelope , and to cut up the latter . We had no difficulty in finding the broad elephant trail , which Ventvögel , after examination , pronounced to have been made by between twenty and thirty elephants , most of them full-grown bulls . But the herd had moved on some way during the night , and it was nine o'clock , and already very hot , before , by the broken trees , bruised leaves and bark , and smoking droppings , we knew that we could not be far from them . Presently we caught sight of the herd , which numbered , as Ventvögel had said , between twenty and thirty , standing in a hollow , having finished their morning meal , and flapping their great ears . It was a splendid sight , for they were only about two hundred yards from us . Taking a handful of dry grass , I threw it into the air to see how the wind was ; for if once they winded us I knew they would be off before we could get a shot .