128 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



round the greatest circumference, twenty-seven and 

 twenty-six and a-half inches respectively. 



These brutes have given me more trouble to kill 

 than any other animal, and the fights I have had 

 with them have been innumerable. After the first 

 year in Assam, during which I killed twenty- two or 

 twenty-three, I kept no account. I seldom fired at 

 them unless they disputed the right of way, or came 

 across a bull with exceptional horns, or to use the 

 carcase as bait for tigers. Although my elephants 

 have been struck several times, only one was seriously 

 wounded, and she could not then be worked for fully 

 four months. On one occasion a friend and I were 

 charged by a whole herd of these irritable brutes, a 

 most unusual proceeding such a thing never having 

 since occurred to me. But on that occasion we had 

 formed line, M. on the right and I on the left, and were 

 in search of a stag marsh deer which I had wounded. 

 We did not know the buffaloes were there. A rush 

 occurred, the lon^ grass was borne down and five of 

 those animals dashed down upon us. So sudden and 

 unexpected was the assault, that they were upon us 

 before we could even fire. The bull made for M., 

 whose elephant behaved splendidly, received the brute 

 on his one tusk, and threw it off as easily as a dog 

 would a rat, and M. killed him before he could 

 recover his legs. The others, after sending the 

 beating elephants flying, came for me. I emptied my 

 battery of four heavy rifles into them, but so 

 persistent were they that they chased my elephant 

 some way, and she only escaped being wounded by 

 her superior speed. She was one of the fastest of her 

 race that I ever rode. But the bovines did not escape 



