148 THE TUSKER WITHOUT A TAIL. 



On Friday, November 9th, 1855, I had a most excit- 

 ing adventure with a tusker. After an early breakfast, I 

 started at six o'clock a.m. to look for elephants with my 

 battery of four guns, and after some time we hit upon a last 

 night's track ; it got mixed up with others on the banks of a 

 stream, and the karders did not seem to be carrying it on 

 satisfactorily to themselves, when one of them suddenly 

 struck upon a fresh track with the droppings not cold in 

 the centre. We had not proceeded very far when the lead- 

 ing karder (a Takedy man) suddenly retreated upon me ; 

 I expected he had come on the elephant, but on stepping 

 forward saw in a small open space a bear grubbing for food. 

 After effectually accounting for him and another, we carried 

 on the spoor of the elephant, and shortly came to signs that 

 he was not far ahead ; we soon heard him, and then saw 

 his great body through the bamboos. I ran on with the big 

 rifle and waited for him on the other side of a clump, some 

 fifteen yards or so from me, and on his head appearing, 

 I saw he was a tusker ; I took a steady aim between the eye 

 and ear and down he went, but from the way he fell I knew 

 he was not killed. I ran up to him and put a couple of pro- 

 jectiles behind his ear as he got on his legs again, but they 

 failed to drop him, and then after firing another apparently 

 well-placed shot which had not the slightest effect upon him, 

 I became so excited and so afraid of losing him, that I fired 

 one or two shots at random, and on attempting to reload 

 found to my intense disgust that I had no more powder. 

 I had foolishly brought out with me my small powder 

 horn, forgetting that the large charges for elephants would 

 soon empty it. 



I had now only one charge left. The elephant was so 



