With Flashlight and Rifle ** 



A large elephant may sometimes be brought down 

 by another shot, as for instance a shot which breaks a 

 bone of the leg, but this is only possible at very close 

 range with a rifle of very heavy calibre. The most 

 experienced hunters are agreed that the smack of a 

 heavy-calibre bullet is more apt to make an elephant 

 take to flight when not mortally wounded than is the 

 stab oj" the small calibre, though this may be more deadly 

 in its after-effect. 



But in the hunting of big game of this kind, above all 

 in the case of elephants, luck plays a very conspicuous 

 role. In several cases the deadly effect of shots I myself 

 have fired has only shown itself when the animals have 

 almost come near enough to kill me. Many have been 

 the elephant-hunters who have been killed by the Tembo 

 they themselves have been hunting ! 



The more one comes into touch with African elephants 

 the more one is on one's guard. The hunter can never 

 know what an elephant may not be up to the next moment 

 a fact with which trainers and keepers of Zoological 

 Gardens also have to reckon. 



I shall never forget how for days together I waited 

 on the top of a hill watching elephants, and waiting in 

 vain for the sunshine without which I could not get good 

 photographs of them. As soon as I had succeeded in 

 this the moment seemed at last to have come when I 

 might kill the two bull elephants in question. I had had 

 several tempting chances already that I had resisted. 

 Leaving the hills, accompanied by some of the most 

 resolute of my men, I crept down by some narrow 



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