280 The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. 



diatdy obliged to run in their turn, as the other elephant 

 charged and just grazed Palliser with his trunk behind. 

 Fortunately, they doubled short round, instead of con- 

 tinuing a straight course, and the elephants turned into 

 the jungle. They followed them for some little dis- 

 tance, but the jungles were so bad that there was no 

 chance, and they returned when I had shouted. 



The man who was hurt was obliged to be supported 

 home. Two of the guns were lost, which the gun- 

 bearers, in their fright, had thrown away. After a long 

 search we found them lying in the high bushes. 



We now returned along the line of hunt to cut off 

 the elephants' tails. I had fired at six, all of which 

 were bagged, which we accordingly found in their va- 

 rious positions. One of them was a very large female 

 with her udder full of milk. Being very thirsty, both 

 Wortley and I took a long pull at this, to the evident 

 disgust of the natives. It was very good, being exactly 

 like cows' milk. This was the elephant that I had 

 killed doubly by the left-hand barrel exploding by acci- 

 dent, and the two balls were only a few inches apart in 

 the forehead. 



There had been very bad luck with this herd ; the 

 only dead elephant, in addition to these six, was that 

 which Wortley and Palliser had both fired at in the 

 river, and another which Palliser had knocked down in 

 the high grass when we had just commenced the attack 

 at which time he had separated from us to cut off 

 the three elephants that we had just seen among the 

 rocks. 



On arrival at the spot where the elephants had first 

 burst from the jungle, a heavy shower came down, and 

 the locks of the guns were immediately covered each 



