SHOOTING ELEPHANTS TREE LEECHES 41 



absolute preventative, is wearing first thick worsted stockings, 

 and over them drawing on a pair of closely knitted cotton or 

 silk stockings, and saturating them with either petrol or a 

 thick decoction of salt and very little water. But then if they 

 can't get at your legs or feet, they will crawl down your back, 

 or get in anywhere, where a loophole is left. They not only 

 deplete one, but the bites very often fester. In fact they, 

 ticks, and mosquitoes, are the plagues of a sportsman's life, 

 and cause him frequently, I fear, to use many and often big, 

 big D's. 



Some remarks on elephant-shooting by that excellent 

 sportsman Col. McMaster are so apropos that I take the liberty 

 of inserting them here. 



"Those who only think of elephants as they have seen 

 these domestic giants working at any of the innumerable 

 tasks on which these almost reasoning slaves may be em- 

 ployed, can hardly imagine how puzzling a matter it is to 

 distinguish them amongst the dark shadows and irregular 

 outlines that fill up any portion of a landscape in their forest 

 haunts. 



" I was for some moments, it seemed to me hours, waiting 

 in long grass and reeds within a few feet, not yards, of the 

 head of a fine tusker, without being able to get a satisfactory 

 shot at him, or even see more than an indistinct dusky 

 outline of form, or a dark shadow as his trunk was raised 

 aloft, when the mighty beast suspected that he scented mis- 

 chief. Having at length made sure that there was something 

 uncanny near him, he uttered a shrill cry and wheeled right 

 round on the very spot on which he stood, without exposing 

 any more vulnerable target than his enormous hind-quarters, 

 at which it would have been wicked and wanton cruelty to 

 fire rushed down the hill, followed by his family (eight or 

 ten unwieldy wives and sturdy children), whose progress, as 

 they crashed through the dense undergrowth of long grass, 

 caused a noise sufficient to startle any one whose nerves were 

 not tightly braced, and which my pen is certainly too weak 

 to describe." 



The following is an extract from the South of India 

 Observer, by " Hawkeye " General R. Hamilton, I believe ; 



