A FIRST DAY'S ELErilANT-SIIOOTING. 335 



stood aghast with their mouths open, and for a few 

 seconds my position was certainly not an enviable 

 one. Fortunately, however, the dogs took off the 

 attention of the elephants, and just as they were 

 upon me, I managed to spring into the saddle, ex- 

 pecting every second to feel one of their trunks 

 laying hold of my body. Kleinboy and Isaac, pale 

 and almost speechless with fright, now handed me 

 my two-grooved rifle, when I returned to the charge, 

 and sent another brace of bullets into the wounded 

 elephant, but Colesberg was extremely unsteady, and 

 destroyed the correctness of my aim. 



" The ' friend,' now seeming resolved to do some 

 mischief, charged furiously, and pursued me several 

 hundred yards I therefore deemed it proper to 

 give her a gentle hint to act less officiously ; and, 

 having loaded, and approached within thirty yards, 

 I gave it to her sharp, right and left, behind the 

 shoulder, upon which she at once made oil', witli 

 drooping trunk, and evidently with a mortal wound. 



" I never recur to this, my first day's elephant 

 shooting," Gordon Gumming goes on to say, " with- 

 out regretting my folly in contenting myself with 

 securing only one elephant. The first was dying 

 and could not leave the ground ; the second was 

 also mortally wounded, and I had only to follow 

 and finish her; but I foolishly amused myself with 

 the first, which kept walking backwards, and stand- 

 ing by every tree she passed. Two more shots settled 

 her ; on receiving these, she tossed her trunk up 

 and down two or three times, and, falling on her 

 broadside against a thorny tree, which yielded like 



