ELEPHANTS WITH ONE TUSK. 



251 



three times before they got a fair shot at him, arid 

 this without trumpeting, or the least warning. It 

 was well known to the natives living in that locality 

 that ho had fought with, and been wounded by, 

 another elephant, so that, for some time, ho showed 

 signs of weakness, from which, however, he gradually 

 recovered, and was at length killed by tho Kruman 

 hunters on the highway between tho Vie Falls and 

 Linganti, where ho molested almost every traveller 

 that passed. Upwards of two hundred shots 

 had been fired at this beast, and then the hunters 

 abandoned him in despair ; but next day he was 

 found dead." 



The natives of India arc said to distinguish 

 elephants by tho shape of their tusks. Thus 

 they have "Putterig" (a bed or cot); "Soor" 

 (a hog) ; " Ankoos" (a crook), and so forth, accord- 

 ing to the resemblance of the tusk to these several 

 objects. In order, moreover, to make tho tusks 

 grow thicker, or perhaps for the sake of uniformity, 

 they (the natives of India) cut off portions of the 

 tusks of the living animals whilst young. 



Elephants having only one tusk, without even tho 

 rudiments of another, are occasionally met with in 

 Southern Africa. When this is tho caso, the tusk, 

 the natives assure me, is invariably of an enormous 

 size. An animal of this kind (the tusk must also 

 be of a particular shape) is highly prized by tho 

 Hindoo Princes, by whom it is kept in stato, and 

 worshipped as a divinity. Tho Hindoo God of 

 Wisdom (Gancsa) is represented with a head like an 

 elephant, with only one tooth. 



