xin STIRRING TIMES AT LECUNDI 131 



drew a portion of the brain matter. I, myself, made 

 a most careful examination and satisfied myself 

 beyond all doubt that both bullets had smashed 

 through the cerebrum. Now these solid, nickel- 

 covered bullets weighed 750 grains each, and were 

 driven at a muzzle-velocity of considerably over 

 2000 feet per second, and how an animal could 

 travel several hundred yards and live for fully half 

 an hour after receiving such terrible wounds, I 

 cannot for a moment imagine. 



Though it is my experience that in ninety-eight 

 cases out of a hundred, a bullet through the brain 

 instantly kills an elephant, on two or three occasions 

 I have pierced the brains of large elephants with 

 small bore bullets without dropping the animals, 

 and have been obliged to finish them off after- 

 wards. 



I may here add that, after every kill, I most 

 minutely scrutinize the course and effects of the 

 bullets, and the sum of my experience has taught me 

 that, even with the best and most powerful of modern 

 rifles, I can never be absolutely certain of stopping a 

 charging elephant. 



II 



About three o'clock next afternoon, some of my 

 men, who had gone back to chop the tusks out of 

 the first elephant shot on the previous day, returned 



K 2 



