50 The Wild Elephant. 



quently to be met with prowling about the by-roads and 

 jungle paths, where travellers are exposed to the utmost 

 risk from their assaults. It is probable that this hostility 

 to man is the result of the enmity engendered by mea- 

 sures which the natives, who have a constant dread of 

 their visits, adopt for the protection of the growing crops. 

 In some districts, especially in the low country of Ba- 

 dulla, the villagers occasionally enclose their cottages 

 with rude walls of earth and branches to protect them 

 from nightly assaults. In places infested by them, the 

 visits of European sportsmen to the vicinity of their 

 haunts are eagerly encouraged by the natives, Avho think 

 themselves happy in lending their services to track the 

 herds in consideration of the benefit conferred on the 

 village communities by the destruction of a rogue. In 

 1847 one of these formidable creatures frequented for 

 some months the Rangbodde Pass on the great moun- 

 tain road leading to the sanatarium, at Neuera-ellia ; and 

 amongst other excesses, killed a Caffre belonging to the 

 corps of Caffre pioneers, by seizing him with its trunk 

 and beating him to death against the bank. 



To return to the herd : one member of it, usually 

 the largest and most powerful, is by common consent 

 implicitly followed as leader. A tusker, if there be one 

 in the party, is generally observed to be the commander ; 

 but a female, if of superior energy, is as readily obeyed 

 as a male. In fact, in this promotion there is no 

 reason to doubt that supremacy is almost unconsciously 

 assumed by those endowed with superior vigour and 

 courage rather than from the accidental possession of 



