540 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



commences his march toward the fountain, which is probably 

 from twelve to twenty miles distant. This he generally 

 reaches between the hours of nine and midnight, when, 

 having slaked his thirst and cooled his body by spouting 

 large volumes of water over his back with his trunk, he 

 resumes the path to his forest solitudes. Having reached a 

 secluded spot, I have remarked that full-grown bulls lie down 

 on their broadsides, about the hour of midnight, and sleep 

 for a few hours. The spot which they usually select is an 

 ant-hill, and they lie around it with their backs resting 

 against it ; these hills formed by the white ants, are from 

 thirty to forty feet in diameter at their base. The mark 

 of the under tusk is always deeply imprinted in the ground, 

 proving that they lie upon their sides. I never remarked 

 that females had thus lain down, and it is only in the more 

 secluded districts that the bulls adopt this practice ; for I 

 observed that, in districts where the elephants were liable 

 to frequent disturbance, they took repose standing on their 

 legs beneath some shady tree. Having slept, they then 

 proceed to feed extensively. Spreading out from one another, 

 and proceeding in a zigzag course, they smash and destroy 

 all the finest trees in the forest which happen to lie in their 

 course. The number of goodly trees which a herd of bull 

 elephants will thus destroy is utterly incredible. They are 

 extremely capricious, and on coming to a group of five or six 

 trees, they break down not unfrequently the whole of them, 

 when, having perhaps tasted one or two small branches, they 

 pass on and continue their wanton work of destruction. I 

 have repeatedly ridden through forests where the trees thus 

 broken lay so thick across one another that it was almost 

 impossible to ride through the district, and it is in situations 

 such as these that attacking the elephant is attended with 

 most danger. During the night they will feed in open plains 

 and thinly-wooded districts, but as day dawns they retire 

 to the densest covers within reach, which nine times in ten 



