ELEPHANT- HUNTING. 227 



satisfied with, hard fare and short commons, as he 

 will often have to subsist wholly upon his gun, 

 with the ground for his bed, and a forest tree for 

 his canopy. He should feel with, the great poet, 

 that "there is society where none intrudes;" 

 for he must often be content with nature and his 

 own thoughts as companions, and he must not let 

 his spirits be depressed by the solitude and 

 intense stillness of the deep jungle. 



The hunter must sleep like a hare, always on 

 the alert, ever prepared and watchful; for he 

 never knows what he may meet, or the danger a 

 moment may bring forth. Inured to peril, he 

 must never be cast-down or faint of heart ; or he 

 had better not attempt to follow up the spoor of 

 the elephant to his haunts in the dense, deep 

 jungle, where the rays of the sun seldom 

 penetrate, and the woodman's axe was never 

 heard where the deadliest of fevers lurk in 

 places the most beautiful to the eye ; and where, 

 with the exception of certain times in the year, 

 the air and the water are poisoned by malaria, 



Q2 



