Now, wherever we looked, we saw great trees. They grew, not in the same dense forests that we had found on the islands in the cataracts, but in lofty groves with broad grassy spaces between the majestic trunks. There was timber enough upon these plains to rebuild all the fleets of all the nations on all the seas of the worlds. More than that, there was enough to rebuild the cities of all the civilized world, and to roof and furnish every room in them. After that there would still be enough left over to burn as fuel over the centuries to come. We who all our lives had cooked our food on bricks made from the dung of our animals, stared around us in wonder.
This was not the only treasure that we found for our taking in this legendary land of Cush that we had reached at last.
I saw them first in the distance and thought that they were monuments of grey granite. They stood upon the yellow grass plains and in the shade beneath the spreading branches of the acacia groves. Then, as we watched in perplexity, these great rocks began to move.
'Elephants!' I had never seen one before, but they could be nothing else. The cry was taken up by those on the deck around me.
'Elephants! Ivory!' These were riches that Pharaoh Ma-mose, with all his funerary treasure, could not have dreamed of. Wherever we looked, the vast herds stood.
'There are thousands of them.' Tanus gazed around him, the passion of the huntsman beginning to dawn in his eyes. 'Just look at them, Taita. There is no end to their numbers.'
The plains were thronged with living creatures, not only the herds of elephant. There were antelopes and gazelle, some of which we knew, and others that we had never seen or heard of before. We would come to know all of them well in the future, and find names for their abundant and diverse species.
Oryx mingled with herds of purple waterbuck whose horns curved like the bow that I had built for Tanus. There were spotted giraffe with necks that reached to the top branches of the acacia trees. The horns that grew from the snouts of the rhinoceros were as tall as a man and as sharp as his spear. The buffalo wallowed in the mud at the river's edge. They were huge bovine beasts, black as Seth's beard, and every bit as ugly. We would soon learn the malevolence behind that melancholy stare with which they regarded our passing, and the menace of those drooping black horns.
'Unload the chariots from the holds,' Tanus roared with impatience. 'Put the horses into the traces. The hunt is on!'
If I had known the danger that we were riding into, I would never have allowed Prince Memnon to mount the footplate behind me as we drove out on our first elephant hunt. To us who knew no better, they appeared such docile brutes, slow and clumsy and stupid. Surely they would be easy game.
Tanus was bristling with impatience to go out against this new quarry, and he would not wait for all four divisions of our chariots to be reassembled. As soon as the first division of fifty vehicles was ready, he gave the order to mount up. We shouted challenges to the other drivers, and made our wagers on the outcome of the hunt as the long columns of chariots rolled out through the groves along the river-bank.
'Let me drive, Tata,' the prince demanded. 'You know I drive as well as you do.' Although he was a natural horseman with gentle hands and an instinctive way with his team, and he practised the art almost every day, the prince's boast was unfounded. He certainly was not as good a charioteer as I was, no man in the army could make that claim, certainly not a scamp of eleven years.
'Watch me and learn,' I told him sternly, and when Memnon turned to Tanus, he supported me for once.
'Taita is right. This is something none of us has done before. Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open, boy.'
Ahead of us a small herd of these strange grey beasts were feasting on the seed-pods that had fallen from the top branches of the trees. I studied them with avid curiosity as we approached at a trot. Their ears were enormous, and they fanned them out and turned to face us. They lifted their trunks high, and I guessed that they were taking up our scent. Had they ever smelled a man or a horse before, I wondered.
There were small calves with them, and the mothers gathered them into the centre of the herd and stood guard over them. I was touched to see this maternal concern, and I had the first inkling then that these animals were not as slow and stupid as they appeared to be. 'These are all females,' I called over my shoulder to Tanus on the footplate. 'They have young at heel, and their ivory is small and of little value.'
'You are right.' Tanus pointed over my shoulder. 'But look beyond them. Those two must surely be bulls. See how tall they stand and how massive is their girth. Look how their tusks shine in the sun.'
I gave the signal to the chariots that followed us, and we veered away from the breeding herd of cows and calves. We ran on, still in column, through the acacia grove towards those two great bulls. As we drove forward, we were forced to swerve around the branches that had been torn from the trees, and to dodge the trunks of giant acacia that had been uprooted. As yet we knew nothing of the unbelievable strength of these creatures, and I called back to Tanus, 'There must have been a great storm through this forest to wreak such destruction.' It did not even occur to me then that the elephant herds were responsible; they seemed so mild and defenceless.
The two old bulls we had selected had sensed our approach and turned to face us. It was only then that I realized the true size of them. When they spread their ears they seemed to block out the sky, like a dark grey thundercloud.
'Just look at that ivory!' Tanus shouted. He was unperturbed, and concerned only with the trophy of the chase, but the horses were nervous and skittish. They had picked up the scent of this strange quarry, and they threw their heads up and crabbed in the traces. It was hard to control them and keep them running straight.
'That one on the right is the biggest,' squeaked Memnon.
'We should take him first.' The pup was every bit as keen as his sire.
'You heard the royal command,' Tanus laughed. 'We will take the one on the right. Let Kratas have the other, it's good enough for him.'
So I raised my fist and gave the hand-command that split the column into two files. Kratas wheeled away on our left with twenty-five chariots following him in line astern, while we ran on straight at the huge grey beast that confronted us with the yellow shafts of ivory, thick as the columns of the temple of Horus, standing out from his vast grey head.
'Go hard at him!' Tanus shouted. 'Take him before he turns to run.'
'Hi up!' I called to Patience and Blade, and they opened up into a gallop. We both expected the huge animal to
