JINJALLS. 193 



can be approached to within a few yards, and dropped on the spot, it is 

 hardly sportsmanlike to take a long shot, and risk wounding the animal 

 uselessly. 



The guns called jinjalls with which elephants were shot by natives in 

 former days, are simply small cannon, fired from a tripod-stand. Two which 

 I have weigh 45 lb. each, and carry a round bullet of nearly half a pound. 

 The charge used was about half a pound of powder ; native powder is not 

 very strong, however. The guns are of native iron, the admirable softness 

 of which alone prevented their bursting. A hunting-party consisted of four 

 men — two to carry the gun slung on a pole, one the stands, and the fourth 

 — the captain — to track, lay the gun, and to fire it. When the elephants 

 were standing listlessly in thick cover at mid-day the gun was placed on 

 the stands at about three feet from the ground, and directed anywhere on an 

 elephant's carcass. It was fired with a touch-match, which gave the hunters 

 two or three seconds to get away. It was usually fired within thirty yards' 

 distance. The match being applied, every one ran for their lives, as the 

 gun, being overcharged for its weight, always flew back several yards, and 

 broken limbs were not unusually the result of failing to get clear. Elephants 

 seldom escaped when wounded, and active hunters are said to have bagged 

 five or six occasionally in a day. As a reward of £7 per head was paid for 

 them by the Madras Government, this was a lucrative employment. There 

 is no doubt that if this slaughter had not been prohibited years ago, the 

 number of elephants would have been very much diminished at this day, 

 and a continuation of it might soon have brought about their practical 

 extinction in parts of Southern India. 



The elephant's character as an animal of sport has been variously repre- 

 sented. Sir Samuel Baker considers it savage, wary, and revengeful ; Sir 

 Emerson Tennent, the reverse. Both these views are, I think, extreme, 

 and I apprehend that the truth lies between them. Though the elephant 

 has little in his nature that can be called savage or revengeful, unless he 

 is maddened by wounds or ill-treatment, he is certainly neither imbecile nor 

 incapable, as Sir Emerson Tennent would have us believe, when he says, 

 " So unaccustomed are they to act as assailants, and so awkward and inex- 

 pert in using their strength, that they rarely or ever succeed in killing 

 a pursuer who falls into their power." Sir Emerson Tennent was not a 

 sportsman, and apparently, from his writings, never in his life encountered 

 elephants when roused to anger, which must be taken into consideration 

 in accepting his view of the matter. 



In their wild state, if a single elephant, or a herd, discover the approach 

 of man at a distance (by their sense of smell), they almost invariably move 



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