232 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



speak, and then charge back again, shows an amount of sys- 

 tematic ' cussedness ' which deserves praise not ridicule. As for 

 the bear, his best friends must admit that his natural grotesque- 

 ness is only enhanced by his efforts at retaliation ; but he does 

 his best. 



With a single exception, all those elephants which Sanderson 

 shot behind the shoulder seem to have given him a long chase 

 before he could bring them to bay, probably because the 

 position of the heart is much harder to judge in the Indian 

 than in the African species, the centre of the outside edge of 

 the latter's ear when thrown back marking the spot. It is not 

 so with the Indian elephant, whose ear is smaller. 



A fight between two wild tuskers is said frequently to last 

 for a day or more, a round being fought every now and then. 

 The more powerful elephant occasionally keeps his foe in view 

 till he perhaps kills him. 



Though elephant catching is of old date, shooting wild 

 elephants seems to have been unheard of at the beginning of 

 the century. Williamson, who wrote abotit the year 1805, re- 

 marks with reference to M. Vaillant's exploits in South Africa : 



Without disparagement to M. Vaillant's veracity, I should 

 think I might with great safety venture a wager that no native 

 of Bengal, nor any European resident there, would undertake such 

 a piece of rashness as to go out shooting wild elephants ; and 

 that, in the event of anyone possessing such temerity, the sports- 

 man would come off second best. M. Vaillant performed his 

 miracles in a wilderness, without anyone to record his achieve- 

 ments ; consequently he was obliged to be his own historian. 

 Persons under such circumstances are in possession of one great 

 advantage : namely, that of relating not only the facts as they 

 would appear to any common observer, but of describing the 

 wondrous coolness and presence of mind which pervades them 

 throughout the perils of the enterprise. 



Sanderson says the largest elephant he has seen measured 

 9 ft. 10 ins. at the shoulder, and declares there is not a ic-ft. 

 elephant in India. Colonel Kinloch measured one he shot 



