ELEPHANTS 129 



had the most desperate weather, pelting rain and the 

 thermometer I oo degrees ! A hut to live in which 

 gloried in a most blackguard roof, and uncommon bad 

 grub, and little enough of it, were the drawbacks. The 

 ' t'other ' affairs I intend bothering you with now, the 

 chief of which was one of the grandest day's elephant- 

 shooting a man can wish for. We marched straight 

 through the Wynand Forest into Malabar, a distance of 

 60 miles from here. The difficulties we had with 

 swollen rivers, two of which we had to bridge, nearly 

 drove us back once or twice, but thoughts of the sport 

 we might expect made us stick like leeches to our 

 object. The march down took us so much longer than 

 we expected, that we found we had only six days to 

 shoot, Falconer being tied to leave. In that time we 

 bagged 



FALCONER. SELF. 



2 Elephants 5 Elephants 

 I Wild sow 2 Bison 



3 Spotted deer I Boar 



(2 of them bucks) 5 Spotted deer 

 I Sambur (a hind) (4 of them bucks) 



4 Sambur (2 stags) 



7 head 17 head 



A capital bag in the time as things go. One of my 

 bison l was a magnificent old bull, and stood 6 feet 8 

 inches at the hump. His rugged old head will look well 

 when hanging in the old shop. The other was a cow ; 

 she died game to the last six hardened balls in her, 

 not one farther than a foot behind the shoulder. But 

 the great day of all was the 3rd of July 1863. Five 



1 Sir Douglas Brooke informs me that he remembers his father saying 

 that this big bison had evidently just been defeated in a sanguinary en- 

 counter with a younger bull, as he was frightfully cut and scored about. 



