A TUSKER- FIGHT. 235 



jungle was tolerably feasible here, so I determined to have a look at them 

 to form an idea of their general stamp, and what fodder they were most 

 intent upon, and other particulars. My gun-bearer, Jaffer, who had accom- 

 panied me to Bengal from Mysore, and an experienced mahout to examine 

 the elephants, accompanied me, Avitk a heavy rifle in case of accidents. The 

 herd consisted of about fifty individuals, and after examining them for nearly 

 an hour at close quarters, merely keeping the wind, we turned to rejoin the 

 pad-elephant on the path. 



Just then a shrill trumpeting and crashing of bamboos about two hun- 

 dred yards to our left broke the stillness, and from the noise we knew it 

 was a tusker-fight. We ran towards the place where the sounds of combat 

 were increasing every moment : a deep ravine at last only separated us 

 from the combatants, and we could see the tops of the bamboos bowing as 

 the monsters bore each other backwards and forwards with a crashing noise 

 in their tremendous struggles. As we ran along the bank of the nullah 

 to find a crossing, one elephant uttered a deep roar of pain, and crossed 

 the nullah some forty yards in advance of us, to our side. Here he com- 

 menced to destroy a bamboo-clump (the bamboos in these hills have a very 

 large hollow, and are weak and comparatively worthless) in sheer fury, 

 grumbling deeply the while with rage and pain. Blood was streaming from 

 a deep stab in his left side, high up. He was a very large elephant, with 

 long and fairly thick tusks, and with much white about the forehead ; the 

 left tusk was some inches shorter than the right. 



The opponent of this Goliath must have been a monster indeed to 

 have worsted him. An elephant-fight, if the combatants are well matched, 

 frequently lasts for a day or more, a round being fought every now and 

 then. The beaten elephant retreats temporarily, followed leisurely by the 

 other, until by mutual consent they meet again. The more powerful ele- 

 phant occasionally keeps his foe in view till he perhaps kills him ; other- 

 wise, the beaten elephant betakes himself off for good on finding he has the 

 worst of it. Tails are frequently bitten off in these encounters. This muti- 

 lation is common amongst rogue-elephants, and amongst the females in a herd; 

 in the latter case it is generally the result of rivalry amongst themselves. 



The wounded tusker was evidently the temporarily-beaten combatant 

 of the occasion, and I have seldom seen such a picture of power and 

 rage as he presented, mowing the bamboos down with trunk and tusks, 

 and bearing the thickest part over with his fore-feet. Suddenly his whole 

 demeanour changed. He backed from the clump and stood like a statue. 

 Not a sound broke the sudden stillness for an instant. His antagonist was 

 silent, wherever he was. Now the tip of his trunk came slowly round in our 



