THE TUSKER WITHOUT A TAIL. 



149 



badly wounded that he could not go out of a slow walk, 

 and I saw that one eye was closed, so I ran up on his 

 blind side and getting a little forward fired my last shot 

 between the eye and ear ; down he fell and I thought the 

 victory was mine, but no, to my astonishment I saw him 

 slowly rise again and walk off. From the way he ran 

 against trees and bamboos I made certain he was quite 

 blind ; he crossed the stream again and went a short way 





up the opposite side, I stole near him and then plainly saw 

 that my surmise was correct. It was then about ten o'clock, 

 so I determined to stand guard over him all day, and an 

 extraordinary day's guard it was. I found he was without a 

 tail, every particle of which had been eaten away by disease, 

 and this tailless behind of his appeared to give him much 

 trouble, as he several times calmly scratched it against a tree. 



