456 THE ELEPHANT 



The Bushmen select full-moon nights for the chase, on account 

 of the coolness, and choose the moment succeeding a charge 

 when the elephant is out of breath to run in and give him a 

 stab with their long-bladed spears. The huge creature is often 

 bristling with missile weapons like a porcupine, and though 

 singly none of the wounds may be mortal, yet their number 

 overpowers him by loss of blood. On the sloping banks of the 

 Zouga the Bayeiye dig deep pitfalls to entrap the animals as 

 they come to drink, but though these traps are constructed with 

 all the care of savage ingenuity, old elephants have been known 

 to precede the herd and whisk off their coverings all the way 

 down to the water, or, giving proof of a still more astonishing 

 sagacity, to have actually lifted the young out of the pits into 

 which they had incautiously stumbled. 



A much more formidable enemy of this noble animal than the 

 spears or pitfalls of the African barbarians is the rifle, particu- 

 larly in the hands of a European marksman, for while the Gri- 

 quas, Boers, and Bechuanas generally stand at the distance of a 

 hundred yards or more, and of course spend all the force of their 

 bullets on the air, the English hunters, relying on their steadiness 

 of aim, approach to within thirty yards of the animal, where they 

 are sure not to waste their powder. The consequence is, that 

 when the Grriquas kill one elephant, such marksmen as Messrs. 

 Oswell, Varden, Grordon Gumming, and Andersson, will bring 

 at least twenty to the ground, and this difference is the 

 more remarkable as the natives employ dogs to assist them, 

 while the English trust to themselves alone. It requires no 

 little nerve to brave the charge of the elephant, the scream 

 or trumpeting of the brute, when infuriated, being more like 

 what the shriek of a steam-whistle would be to a man standing 

 on the dangerous part of a railroad, than any other earthly 

 sound; a horse unused to 'it wdll sometimes stand shivering 

 instead of taking his rider out of danger, or fall paralysed by 

 fear, and thus expose him to be trodden into a mummy, or 

 dashing against a tree, crack his skull against a branch. 



Even the most experienced hunters have many dangers to 

 encounter while facing their gigantic adversary. Thus, on the 

 banks of the Zouga in 1850, Mr. Oswell had one of the most 

 extraordinary escapes from a wounded elephant perhaps ever 

 recorded in the annals of the chase. Pursuing the brute into 



