The Elephant 45 



doubt ; more especially in connection with the effects of 

 wounds in the head, which is so formed that half of it 

 might be shot away without an animal suffering otherwise 

 than from shock and loss of blood. 



To C. Sealy, Magistrate, etc. 



Sir : — I have the honor to state that on the 24th instant, at mid- 

 night, I received information that two elephants of very uncommon 

 size had made their appearance vi^ithin a few hundred yards of the 

 cantonment and close to the village, the inhabitants of which were in 

 the greatest alarm. I lost no time in despatching to the place all the 

 public and private elephants we had in pursuit of them, and at day- 

 break on the 25th, was informed that their very superior size and 

 apparent fierceness had rendered all attempts at their seizure unavail- 

 ing ; and that the most experienced mahout I had was dangerously 

 hurt — the elephant he rode having been struck to the ground by one 

 of the wild ones, which, with its companion, had then adjourned to a 

 large sugar-cane field adjoining the village. I immediately ordered the 

 guns (a section of a light battery) to this place, but wishing in the 

 first place, to try every means for catching the animals, I assembled 

 the inhabitants of the neighborhood, and with the assistance of the 

 resident Rajah caused two deep pits to be prepared at the edge of 

 the cane field in which our elephants and the people contrived, with 

 the utmost dexterity, to retain the wild ones during the day. When 

 these pits were reported ready, we repaired to the spot, and they were 

 cleverly driven into them. But, unfortunately, one of the pits did not 

 prove to be sufficiently deep, and the one who escaped from it, in the 

 presence of many witnesses, assisted his companion out of the other 

 pit with his trunk. Both were, however, with much exertion, brought 

 back into the cane, and as no particular symptoms of vice or fierceness 

 had appeared in the course of the day, I was anxious to make another 

 effort to capture them. The beldars, therefore, were set to work to 

 deepen the old and prepare new pits against daybreak, when I pro- 

 posed to make the final attempt. About four o'clock yesterday, how- 

 ever, they burst through all my guards, and making for a village about 

 three miles distant, reached it with such rapidity that the horsemen 

 who galloped before them, had not time to apprise the inhabitants of 



