ELEPHANTS. 155 



damage sustained by their crops each successive year. A 

 small herd of a dozen elephants will destroy many acres of 

 rice or jowari * fields during a nocturnal raid lasting but a 

 few hours, not only by eating it, but by tramping it down, 

 for, although when in the jungle they are much addicted to- 

 travelling in single file, directly they debouch into arable 

 land they extend on a broad front, a formation better 

 suited for foraging, as otherwise the leaders of the herd 

 would annex all the tit-bits. These visits will almost to a 

 certainty be repeated by succeeding herds, which have 

 a habit of following the same routes as their predecessors, 

 and which are adhered to from year to year. A few years 

 previous to the veto against the shooting of elephants, 

 a Government reward of seventy rupees was actually paid 

 for every elephant killed, and great numbers were destroyed 

 by native shikaries with huge guns, fired from a tripod by 

 slow match. As one elephant per annum was sufficient to- 

 keep the man living in comparative luxury for the whole of 

 that time, some of the jungle wallahs made a good thing- 

 of it, especially as they also used pitfalls, which were dug 

 in the routes by which the elephants proceeded during the 

 rains on their annual visit to the bamboo jungles, in 

 search of the young shoots, of which they are very fond. 

 These still exist in some jungles, and are twelve feet long, 

 eight broad, and fifteen feet deep. A stick is placed across 

 the pit to break the fall of the elephant when it is intended 

 to catch him alive, but the depth is so great that the 

 unfortunate animals generally succumb to internal injuries 

 or broken limbs. I have a dim recollection of seeing some 

 pits in the Annamullays, in which a pointed stake had 

 been driven to kill the animal, which, if a tusker, occasion- 

 ally escaped by digging down the sides of the pits, and 

 * Same as cholum a species of millet. 



