160 HUNTING IN THE JUNGLE. 



"We have her," shouted Thursday, and with his native 

 friends, began indulging in expressions of extravagant 

 delight. It would have broken your heart to hear her 

 piteous notes when these unaccustomed sounds reached 

 her, trapped through her love for her young, and, in spite 

 of frantic efforts, unable to get out of Thursday's cleverly 

 arranged trap. The latter was ungenerous enough to 

 utter again some of the cries of distress that had first 

 deceived her, until I ordered liim sharj^ly to desist. Pity 

 for a vanquished enemy is something that never enters a 

 negro's head, and sympathy with a wounded or suffering 

 animal strikes him as superlatively ridiculous, and I was 

 compelled to repeat my order angrily to obtain obedience. 



The rest of the night passed in comparative quiet, al- 

 though the elephant never ceased to struggle to escape ; 

 and my conscience reproached me that I should have been 

 the cause of sacrificing her to her maternal instincts. As 

 dawn came her struggles seemed to cease, for we no lon- 

 ger heard her frantic movements, which, we inferred, had 

 wearied her. Thursday and I climbed down, when it 

 was light, and approached our captive. What was our 

 astonishment to see her, with the aid of her tusks, digging 

 into the bank and trampling down the earth to aid her 

 escape ! This accounted for the silence of the last fev/ 

 hours, and had we given her a few more she would have 

 succeeded easily. The animal was so intent on her work 

 that she did not at first notice us, but when she did, she 

 associated us at once with her misfortunes, and began to 



