ELEPHANTS 



grassy glade, I saw, through the trees, the elephant coming 

 down another narrow glade at right angles to the one 

 we were in, and so Tom and I walked quietly but quickly 

 forward to the spot where the glades joined, and there 

 met the animal face to face within 5 yards. It being Tom's 

 turn for first shot I urged him in a whisper to shoot, 

 but he hesitated, not liking the position of the head at the 

 time as not offering a good chance, and the elephant turned 

 round and walked back up the glade it had come down. 

 We followed quietly about 10 yards behind it, and it kept 

 partly turning round to glance at us, until at last, sus- 

 pecting something wrong in our persistent advance, it 

 turned half round towards us and Tom let fly at its ear 

 with my 8-bore as soon as it was broadside on, knocking 

 it clean over. " That's settled it," says Tom. " Not a bit 

 of it," said I, and running up to it began putting some 

 bullets into the back of its head (Dum-dum bullets, by 

 all that's holy, out of a .303 Lee-Speed !), whilst Tom ran 

 round to try for a front shot with the 8-bore. 



This was a silly game on our part, as the obvious thing 

 to have done would have been to put an 8-bore bullet 

 through its spine at once and then kill it. The cartridges 

 for the 8-bore were rather old and had swelled, so Tom 

 could not get the used one out, whilst in the meantime 

 the elephant was reviving and trying to get up in spite 

 of my efforts with the .303 and the Dum-dums. Presently 

 it got up altogether, and turned towards me very nastily. 

 Tom disappeared somewhere and I disappeared also, with 

 marvellous celerity, behind a small bush through which 

 I watched the puzzled and distinctly dazed elephant very 

 anxiously. It waved its trunk about a bit and took some 

 steps towards me, stopped, turned, and made for the jungle 

 edge, which was only 20 yards away. As it went I heard 



113 H 



