Little glades of rank grass occasionally break the monotony of the dark forest; sandy gullies in deep beds formed by the torrents of the rainy season cut through the crumbling soil and drain toward the river.

Thick brushwood now and then forms an opposing barrier, but generally the forest is beautifully open, consisting of towering trees, the leviathans of their race, sheltering the scanty saplings which have spring from their fallen seeds.

For a few hundred yards on either side of the river the forest extends in a ribbon-like strip of lofty vegetation in the surrounding sea of low scrubby jungle.
The animals leave the low jungle at night, passing through the forest on their way to the river to bathe and drink; they return to the low and thick jungle at break of day and we hoped to meet some of the satiated elephants on their way to their dense habitations.
We almost made sure of finding our friend of yesterday's trek, and we accordingly kept close to the edge of the river, keeping a sharp eye for tracks upon the sandy bed below.
We had strolled for about a mile along the high bank of the river without seeing a sign of an elephant, when I presently heard a rustle in the branches before me, and upon looking up I saw a lot of monkeys gamboling in the trees.

I was carrying my long two-ounce rifle, and I was passing beneath the monkey-covered boughs, when I suddenly observed a young tree of the thickness of a man's thigh shaking violently just before me.
It happened that the jungle was a little thicker in his spot, and at the same moment that I observed the tree shaking almost over me, I passed the immense stem of one of those smooth-barked trees which grow to such an enormous size on the banks of rivers.

At the same moment that I passed it I was almost under the trunk of a single bull elephant, who was barking the stem with his tusk as high as he could reach, with his head thrown back.