A COMMON ELEPHANT- SHOOTING STORY. 241 



its bed ten or twelve feet into the air followed the report, and I have a 

 dim recollection of my old friend hugging me the next moment in his 

 delight while he exclaimed, * Splendid, old boy ! he's dead ; and the biggest 

 tusker ever killed in India ! ' But our work was not yet over. With one 

 or two tremendous lurches from side to side the old bull regained his feet, 

 but only to be again felled by my second barrel, and this time to rise no 

 more. The shades of evening were closing in fast, and a long journey 

 lay between us and home, so we had but a few moments to admire 

 one of the grandest trophies it has ever fallen to the lot of a sportsman 

 to secure." 



There is a common elephant-shooting story which one frequently hears 

 in India, of sportsmen having been overtaken by infuriated elephants which 

 have endeavoured, but failed, to pin them to the ground, a tusk entering 

 the earth on each side of them, whilst they have escaped without injury. 

 I have never heard any one say the occurrence had happened to himself, 

 but men have been named — generally Major somebody — as having under- 

 gone the agony. Why unfortunate majors should always be selected as the 

 victims is not easy to understand. I think the popular idea of a major is a 

 man arrived at an age when a rubber and a cheroot, or a game at billiards, 

 is more congenial diversion than foot-racing with wounded elephants, and 

 of a figure which would not fit easily between a pair of tusks. Were a 

 slim sub-lieutenant substituted as the hero, the story would be robbed of a 

 certain amount of its improbability. Then why the victim should be robed 

 in a jacket of spotless white — as sometimes the more daring versions 

 affirm — it is difficult to conjecture. It is certainly not a suitable colour 

 for jungle-shooting, though it answers well in the story, as it shows plainly 

 to the horrified listener the blood which has trickled from the wounded 

 monster's forehead on to the unhappy major's back ! 



My readers may rest assured that no major who was ever prodded at 

 by an elephant lived to become a lieutenant-colonel. It is almost a physi- 

 cal impossibility that a man could be got between the tusks, on the ground, 

 without the elephant's kneeling or treading on him ; and as the elephant 

 uses its ponderous fore -feet in addition to its tusks in disposing of an 

 enemy, nor major nor otlier man would be likely to escape a deliberate 

 attempt at scotching him. 



The manner in which vn\.i\. animals, especially herbivorous ones, recover 

 from severe wounds, which in India always become fly-blown in a few 

 hours, is worthy of remark. Some flies deposit their young alive as very 

 small maggots. I have known many people doubt this fact. Indeed I 

 myself could scarcely believe it at first, but I found the fact was well 



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