124 The Rijic and Hound in Ceylon. 



hind the ear, I fired my remaining barrel. Judge of my 

 surprise ! — it only increased his speed, and in another 

 moment he reached the jungle : he was gone. He 

 seemed to bear a charmed life. I had taken two shots 

 within a few feet of him that I would have staked my 

 life upon. I looked at my gun. Ye gods! I had 

 been firing snipe shot at him. It was my rascally 

 horsekeeper, who had actually handed me the shot- 

 gun, which I had received as the double-barreled ball- 

 gun that I knew was carried by a gun-bearer. Howl 

 did thrash him ! If the elephant had charged instead of 

 making oft', I should have been caught, to a certainty. 



This day's shooting was the last day of good sport 

 that I ever had at Minneria. It was in June, 1S47. 

 The next morning I moved my encampment and 

 started homeward. To my surprise I saw a rogue 

 elephant drinking in the lake, within a quarter of a 

 mile of me ; but the Fates were against his capture. I 

 stalked him as well as I could, but he winded me, and 

 came on in full charge with his trunk up. The heavy 

 rifle fortunately turned but did not kill him, and he 

 escaped in thorny jungle, through which I did not 

 choose to follow. 



On my way to the main road from Trincomalee to 

 Kandy I walked on through the jungle path about a 

 mile ahead of my followers, to look out for game. 

 Upon arriving at the open country in the neighborhood 

 of Cowdellai, I got a shot at a deer at a killing distance. 

 She was not twenty yards off, and was looking at me as 

 if spell-bound. This provided me with venison for a 

 couple of days. The rapid decomposition of all things 

 in a tropical climate renders a continued supply of 

 animal food very precarious, if the produce of the rifle 



