1 88 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



gun between her ears, within six inches of the back 

 of her head, and fired, on which she lay perfectly 

 still. Arotsy, one of my gun-carriers, now went 

 behind her to cut off her tail, but on lifting it, 

 finding it devoid of hairs (for the animal was old), 

 he did not think it worth taking. My other gun- 

 carrier remarking that she still kept opening her 

 mouth, I took the gun from him and again fired 

 another bullet into the back of her skull, close to its 

 junction with the vertebras. This time I placed the 

 muzzle within an inch of the skin, and the smoke 

 from the powder came curling out of the hole in a 

 thin blue wreath. 



I then sat down behind the dead animal's head 

 (for dead I thought she surely must have been) for 

 about a quarter of an hour, during which time she 

 lay as still as the grave. So I left her, and went to the 

 elephant first killed, and, as soon as my attendant 

 had cut out the heart and inside fat, started for the 

 river, reaching the camp, which was not more than 

 two miles distant, about sundown. 



At first dawn next day we set off to chop out the 

 two pairs of tusks, as I wished to push farther on up 

 the river. We soon reached the first elephant, and, 

 leaving three Kafirs with it, I went with the rest to 

 the other one, and before long came to the place 

 where I had left it the preceding evening ; but, to 

 my surprise and horror, instead of the bulky carcase 

 and long white tusks, I saw only its impress in the 

 sand and a large pool of blood, which it had thrown 

 out with its trunk as it lay on the ground. Though 

 I could scarcely believe my eyes, the fact remained. 

 The elephant, after having received five four-ounce 

 bullets in the body and two in the back of the head, 

 had got up in the night and gone off ! Truth is 



