306 - THE ELEPHANT. [Part VIII. 



tions. Hence fi'om their closer contact with man and 

 his dwellings, these outcasts become disabused of many 

 of the terrors which render the ordinary elephant 

 timid and needlessly cautious : they break through 

 fences without fear ; and even in the dayhght a 

 rogue has been known near Ambogammoa to watch a 

 field of labourers at work in reaping rice, and boldly 

 to walk in amongst them, seize a sheaf from the heap, 

 and reth*e leisurely to the jungle. By day they seek 

 conceahnent, but are to be met with prowluig about the 

 by-roads and jungle paths, where travellers are exposed 

 to the utmost risk from their savage assaults. It is 

 probable that this hostility to man is the result of the 

 enmity engendered by those measures which the 

 natives, who have a constant dread of their visits, 

 adopt for the protection of their growing crops. In 

 some districts, especially in the low country of Badulla, 

 the villagers occasionally enclose their cottages with 

 rude walls of earth and branches to protect them fi'om 

 nightly assaults. In places mfested by them, the 

 visits of Eiu^opean sportsmen to the vicinity of their 

 haunts are eagerly encomiiged by the natives, who 

 think themselves happy in lending their ser\dces to 

 track the ordinary herds in consideration of the 

 benefit conferred on the village communities, by the 

 destruction of a rogue. In 1847 one of these formid- 

 able creatures frequented for some months the Eang- 

 bodde Pass on the great mountain road leading to the 

 sanatarium, at Neuera-eUia ; and one morning, at day- 

 break, I rode up to the spot where he had lolled one of 

 the corps of Caffre pioneers but a few moments before, 

 by seizing liim with his trunk and beating him to death 

 against the bank. 



To retm-n to the herd : one member of it, generally 

 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 



