Elephant Shooting. 89 



extraordinarily quiet manner in which these gigantic 

 animals move through the forest when trying to avoid 

 observation or danger." 



The height of an elephant is almost exactly double 

 the circumference of the fore-foot as it rests upon the 

 ground Asiatic elephants are doubtless less than 

 their African confreres, but there is in the Calcutta 

 museum the skeleton of an Indian elephant a little 

 over eleven feet in height, which therefore must 

 have been very little short of twelve feet high 

 when in the flesh. In 1855 I killed my first elephant 

 but the tale has been told elsewhere, I will not 

 therefore repeat it here. About a year afterwards, 

 I had to go to Mendoon on the Ma'ee, a lovely 

 stream, some forty miles west or south-west of 

 Thayet Myo, our then frontier station. Here I had 

 various sport, but an old Burman, who had accom- 

 panied Ashe of the Artillery into the Arrakan range, 

 when he shot three elephants, asked if I'd like to 

 see some, and if so, he could show me a solitary 

 bull. "Won't a weasel suck a rabbit?" As a 

 matter of course I would. " But how far have we 

 to go ? " I asked, "for I have to be back in a day or 

 two." " If we leave to-day," said the Burman, " there 

 is a teh we can sleep in to-night, and get to the jungle 

 about twelve next day." That meant, I knew, a good 

 twenty miles or more, but I was young and eager. 

 I put a few things together, which a couple of men 

 carried. My Madras boy and his son accompanied 

 me, and about 10 A.M. we started. "When clear 

 of the ancient town of Mendoon, then in ruins, we 

 followed by-paths for an hour, then crossed a stream, 

 which lower down fell into the Ma'ee, and entered a 



