A TWO MONTHS' LEAVE IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 5 



the right, it being too thick to fire at them. One charged 

 straight towards us, but was turned by a shot from C, and 

 went away to the left badly hit. The elephant fired at by 

 myself and Tuanko had dropped on his knees stone dead, the 

 two shots being within three inches of each other, and both 

 having penetrated the brain. After loading, we followed the 

 three, which turned out to be a tusker, a cow, and a calf. 

 Twice, as we followed them, they charged down to within 

 twenty yards of us, though we could not see them, the covert 

 was so dense. After a time, we unfortunately got separated, 

 Tuanko and myself losing the track. C, with the tracker, 

 came up with the elephants twice, but, though he fired both at 

 the tusker and the cow, he did not get a front shot. 



While he was still after them, a sambur got up and looked at 

 him at about forty yards off, so C. had no difficulty in knocking 

 him over. He then gave up the pursuit of the elephants, cut 

 up the deer, and came back towards the boat, bringing the 

 skin and some 'tit-bits.' We sent some of the men for the 

 rest of the venison ; and two of them managed to lose themselves, 

 and were out all night. Tuanko and I returned to the dead 

 elephant after losing the track ; and cutting out the tushes, and 

 taking one of his great ears, we returned to the tongkong. At 

 4'30 p.m. we had combined breakfast and dinner, consisting 

 of fried venison (with currant jelly !), elephant's tongue (awfully 

 hard) and marrow, and roast pigeons, all the produce of the 

 gun, and the first day it found us a dinner. 



Saturday, September 9. — Set off early to look for the lost 

 sheep, and found them very shortly ; they had luckily stuck to 

 the venison through the night. They had passed the night in a 

 tree, under which, they said, five elephants had kept up a 

 chorus. Worked till 11*30, but came across nothing but a pig, 

 which we could not see to shoot, though not twenty yards off. 



September 10th, being Sunday, we determined to give our- 

 selves a rest, so did not get up as early as usual. During the 

 afternoon, however, I made up my mind, as there would be a 

 good moon about ten o'clock, to go and watch for elephants, on 



