ELEPHANTS 727 



We learned that the village, which was a couple of miles 

 away, had been destroyed by these elephants, under the 

 lead of the rogue bull. The elephants had begun by rav- 

 aging the gardens and plots of cultivated ground; the natives 

 tried to drive them away; the beasts grew bolder and finally 

 one night when the natives yelled at them, they charged 

 them, drove them into their huts, and then destroyed sev- 

 eral of the huts; and one, the rogue bull, killed one and 

 maimed another of the inhabitants. In out-of-the-way 

 places wicked herds will sometimes thus attack hunters' 

 camps, being attracted rather than repelled by the fire. Mr. 

 Paul Niedieck in his "Rifle in Five Continents" describes 

 an attack thus made on him in which he nearly lost his life. 

 Not only are some individual elephants particularly vicious, 

 but there are whole herds which are vicious. 



Elephant hunting, in addition to being ordinarily very 

 hard work, is often dangerous. As we have elsewhere said, 

 experienced hunters often differ widely in their estimates as 

 to how the different kinds of dangerous game rank as foes. 

 There are many men who regard elephants as the most dan- 

 gerous of all; and again there are many others who regard 

 the lion and the buffalo as beyond comparison more formi- 

 dable. Our own view is that there is a very wide range of 

 individual variation among the individuals of each species, 

 and, moreover, that the conditions of country and surround- 

 ings vary so that one must be very cautious about general- 

 izing. Judging partly from our own limited experience, and 

 partly from a very careful sifting of the statements of many 

 good observers with far wider experience, we believe that, 

 taking the average of a large number of cases under varied 

 conditions, the lion is the most dangerous; that a buffalo 



