THE WILD ELEPHANT. 221 



of danger. If wounded, however, he will sometimes turn upon 

 his aggressor with terrible vengeance. Mr. Burchell, the South 

 African traveller, gives a painful illustration of this. He says: 

 "Carl Krieger was a fearless hunter, and being an excellent 

 marksman, often ventured into the most dangerous situations. 

 One day having, with his party, pursued an elephant which 

 he had wounded, the irritated animal suddenly turned round, 

 and singling out from the rest the person by whom he had 

 been injured, seized him with his trunk, and lifting his wretched 

 victim high in the air, dashed him with dreadful force 

 to the ground. His companions, struck with horror, fled 

 precipitately from the fatal scene, unable to look back upon 

 the rest of the dreadful tragedy; but on the following day 

 they repaired to the spot, where they collected the few bones 

 that could be found, and buried them. The enraged animal 

 had not only literally trampled Krieger's body to pieces, but 

 did not feel its vengeance satisfied till it had pounded the 

 very flesh and bones into the dust, so that nothing of the 

 unfortunate man remained excepting a few of the latter, 

 which made most resistance from their size. " Another ele- 

 phant seized a soldier of the Royal African Corps, threw him 

 down, brought his four feet together and stamped upon him 

 until he was dead; then seizing the body with his trunk, 

 threw it into the jungle. 



Elephant Major Skinner in a communication made to 

 Herds. Sir E. Tennant gives the following graphic descrip- 

 tion of the actions of a herd of elephants he watched on one 

 occasion in the north of Ceylon. Knowing that from the 

 scarcety of water at that time and place a large herd of 

 elephants which he knew to be in the neighbourhood must 

 visit a certain pool during the night he made his preparations 

 accordingly. He says : " Having ordered the fires of my 

 camp to be extinguished at an early hour, and all my fol- 

 lowers to retire to rest, I took up my post of observation on 

 an overhanging bough ; but I had to remain for upwards of 



