90 THE OUT- STATION; OR, 



However, their owner suffered most for these 

 freaks, for he always made good the damages, which 

 were generally multiplied, I expect, to rather an en- 

 ormous extent. 



I caught two of the animals one day in my bed- 

 room, with an almost bran-new twenty-guinea rifle 

 jacket in their clutches ; one of them at one arm, 

 and the other ripping off the braid by the yard to 

 its inexpressible delight and self-gratification. 



(Didn't they just catch it?) 



I must relate an anecdote told me by Major R 



of a laughable circumstance that once befel him when 

 elephant shooting in the North-west part of the 

 Island. 



He had accepted the invitation of a brother officer 

 living thereat, to try a few days' hostilities against 

 the elephants of that neighbourhood, and had arrived, 

 after a hard day's sport, to within a mile or two 

 of the bungalow where his host and hostess were 

 awaiting his arrival, and where the dinner was either 

 getting cold or exceedingly over-dressed, when, pass- 

 ing by a delightfully cool-looking river, he thought a 

 plunge would be the most renovating luxury in ex- 

 istence ; so a plunge he determined to take, sending 

 on his servants with his guns, and an intimation that 

 in ten minutes he would be at home. 



Stripping and placing his things very carefully on a 

 stone, he began to luxuriate in the water. He was a ca- 

 pital swimmer, and had swam to some distance, when to 



