82 The Wild Elephant. 



The shooting of elephants in Ceylon has been de- 

 scribed with tiresome iteration in the successive journals 

 of sporting gentlemen, but one who turns to their pages 

 for natural traits of the animal and his instincts is dis- 

 appointed to find little beyond graphic sketches of the 

 daring and exploits of his pursuers, most of whom, 

 having had no further opportunity of observation than 

 is derived from a casual encounter with the outraged 

 animal, have apparently tried to exalt their own prowess 

 by misrepresenting the ordinary character of the elephant, 

 describing it as ''savage, wary, and revengeful." ^ 



These epithets may undoubtedly apply to the outcasts 

 from the herd, the " rogues " or Jiora al/ia, but so small 

 is the proportion of these that there is not probably more 

 than one rogjic to be found for every five hundred of 



at the same part with the Dutch six- cooled his person with large quantities 



pounder. Large tears tww trickled of water, which he ejected from his 



frovt his eyes, ivhich lie slowly shut and trunk over his sides and back, and just 



opened, his colossal frame shivered as the pangs of death came over him, 



convulsively, atid falling on his side, he stood trembling violently beside a 



he expired." (Vol. ii. p. lo. ) thorn tree, and kept pouring water 



In another place, after detailing the into his bloody mouth until he died, 



manner in which he assailed a poor when he pitched heavily forward with 



animal, he says: "I was loading and the whole weight of his fore-quarters 



firing as fast as could be, sometimes at resting on the points of his tusks. The 



the head, sometimes behind the shoul- strain was fair, and the tusks did not 



der, until my elephant's fore-quarter yield ; but the portion of his head in 



was a mass of gore ; notwithstanding which the tusks were embedded, ex- 



which he continued to hold on, leaving tending a long way above the eye, 



the grass and branches of the forest yielded and burst with a muffled crash." 



scarlet in his wake Having {lb. vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.) 



fired thirty-five ro/oids with my two- ' The Rifle and the Hound in 



grooved rifle, I opened upon him with Ceylon ; by Sir S. Baker, pp. 8, 9. 



the Dutch six-pounder, and when forty " Next to a rogue in ferocity, and 



bullets had perforated his hide, he began even more persevering in the pursuit of 



for the first time to evince signs of a her victim, is a female elephant." But 



dilapidated constitution." The dis- he appends the significant qualification, 



gusting description is closed thus: " luhen Iter young one Jtas been killed." 



" Throughout the charge he repeatedly [Ibid. p. 13.) 



