Elephant Shot. 59 



went by like a whirlwind. I saw the dust fly when some 

 of these bullets cracked on his hide, but I could not tell 

 exactly where they went. The stricken beast now ran 

 towards the place I had first seen him standing, and, as 

 I could see nothing when I came down from the anthill, 

 Kamvvendo and I ran towards the place where he had 

 disappeared. We then heard a man shouting something, 

 and, as we could not hear what he said, I told Kamwendo to 

 go over to him and find out. I moved forward, and then 

 saw the elephant standing some seventy yards off, and 

 as I had got into the burned dambo and the elephant 

 looked very annoyed, I thought I had better get under 

 the cover of the grass again. 



As Kamwendo approached, I heard Tereka, the other 

 man, shout something to him, and Kamwendo passed on 

 the message that the elephant had collapsed. 



We then went close to an anthill within fifteen paces of 

 the elephant, from where I saw the poor animal on his 

 knees, and I could see his side moving as he breathed, so I 

 fired another two shots, one at his head and one behind his 

 shoulder, and he died. 



Leaving our perch on the anthill, we went to look at 

 him, and I was very disappointed to see that he had 

 only one sound tusk ; but it was a beauty, and when I got it 

 out I found that it weighed 55lb. afterwards it dried 

 to 53lb. and measured 6^ft. long, and it was beautifully 

 curved and without a crack or flaw. 



The stump of the other tusk, broken short off at the lip, 

 proved to weigh i4lb., and it was all cracked and diseased. 



This elephant had a bullet, about '450 bore, nickel 

 covered, in his head, and also a -303 bullet in his shoulder. 



The pain of the bullet wounds, and especially the nerve 

 of his broken tusk, must have caused the animal tortures, 

 and this accounted for his strange behavour in butting the 

 tree and showing so much restlessness. I found the bullet 

 that killed him was one of my running shots which had gone 

 through his lungs, and Tereka told me that before the 

 elephant fell he put his trunk in the air three times. This 



