ELEPHANT 



'97 



is quite common to shoot in this way the largest bulls, even 

 with the tiny .256 Mannlicher, or the .276 Mauser rifle. 

 I have known an elephant to fall dead within two hun- 

 dred yards to one shot from a .256 Mannlicher that pene- 

 trated the whole length of the body from behind, and at 

 last lodged in the heart. On the other hand, it is still 

 quite easy, even with the most powerful of modern rifles, 

 to plaster an unfortunate beast all over with bullets, and 

 not to bring him down. Twenty large bullets were fired 

 into one bull by my friend's professional hunter and his 

 gunbearers before the poor beast fell. I amused myself 

 on several occasions after I had secured my elephants, by 

 stalking close up to beasts I did not wish to kill, and think- 

 ing how and where I should shoot them, if I did wish to kill. 

 I seldom found them holding their great heads steady enough 

 for me at least to attempt the head shot. Either they were 

 feeding, or whisking away the flies, or there were branches 

 or cover between, whereas the shoulder, or the spine shot 

 offer a target so large that it can easily be hit even in a 

 moving elephant. 



The great home of the elephant is in the Congo. There 

 just now many hunters, some licensed, and most of them 

 not, are bending their steps. The old regime is over. 

 The king of the Belgians' authority has been superseded, 

 and the new rulers of the country are not on the ground. 

 I believe a case of champagne, falling into appreciative 

 hands, has been known to remove obstacles hitherto deemed 

 insuperable. As much as two tons of ivory have been lately 

 taken out of the Congo by one hunter in four months. 

 There are reports flying about of even larger kills. They 

 say that elephant there are not so dangerous as with us in the 

 Protectorate, and certainly there do not seem to be any- 

 thing like the same number of fatalities among Congo 

 hunters that there are among men following elephant 

 in Uganda or the Protectorate. It may be that those who 



