94 The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. 



true to his character of a rogue, he immediately advanced 

 with a shrill trumpet toward me. His ears were cocked, 

 and his tail was well up ; but, instead of charging, as 

 rogues generally do, with his head thrown rather back 

 and held high, which renders a front shot very uncertain, 

 he rather lowered his head, and splashed toward me 

 through the mud, apparently despising my diminutive 

 appearance. 



I thought it was all up with me this time : I was im- 

 movable in my bed of mud, and, instead of the clean 

 brown barrel that I could usually trust to in an extrem- 

 ity, I raised a mass of mud to my shoulder, which en- 

 cased my rifle like a flannel bag. I fully expected it to 

 miss fire ; no sights were visible, and I had to guess the 

 aim with the advancing elephant within five yards of 

 me. Hopelessly I pulled the slippery trigger. The 

 rifle did not even hang fire, and the rogue fell into the 

 deep bed of mud stone dead. If the rifle had missed 

 fire, I must have been killed, as escape would have been 

 impossible. It was with great difficulty that I was ex- 

 tricated from my muddy position by the joint exertions 

 of myself and gun-bearers. 



Elephants, buffaloes and hogs are equally fond of 

 wallowing in the mud. A buffalo will gallop through 

 a swamp, hock deep, in which a horse would be utterly 

 powerless, even without a rider. Elephants can also 

 make wonderful progress through deep mud, the forma- 

 tion of the hind legs with knees instead of hocks giving 

 them an increased facility for moving through heavy 

 ground. 



The great risk in attacking rogue elephants consists 

 in the impracticability of quick movements upon such 

 ground as they generally frequent. The speed and 



