162 ELEPHANTS. 



tuskers and a cow were about two koss distant, in some 

 thick jungle towards the River Cauvery, and that he had 

 left two jungle wallahs to watch them. We thereupon 

 held a council of war, deciding to tiffin and start after 

 them without loss of time, as they could not be depended on 

 to stay another night in their present quarters, and might 

 be forty miles away if we waited until next morning. 



A walk of over an hour through park -like undulating 

 country, took us to a lonely valley surrounded by steep 

 hills, and about one mile in breadth, through the middle of 

 which a prettily-wooded stream wound down to the 

 Cauvery. The scouts, immediately descending from their 

 trees, came forward to report that the elephants, after 

 drinking, bathing, and skylarking in a small pond, had 

 betaken themselves to feed in a dense thicket of the smaller 

 kind of bamboo, which fringed the stream about half a 

 mile below us. Descending into the valley, we first 

 visited the pond, which was not more than twenty yards 

 square. The margin had once been covered with barroo 

 reeds, but these the elephants had demolished ; the place 

 was poached up in every direction by their tracks, 

 the steep banks had also been scaled, and high jinks had 

 evidently been going on all round ; indeed, the jungle 

 wallahs reported that this was a honeymooning trip, and 

 that the pond had been the scene of both love and war. 

 Also that the tuskers were rival suitors, and had had 

 frequent indecisive battles, as, although differing in size, 

 the smaller bull had larger tusks than his opponent, which 

 subsequently proved to be true. We then took the tracks 

 up to the thicket, and soon heard the cracking of the 

 bamboos as they were munched by the elephants. Creep- 

 ing forward we got to within twenty yards of them, but the 

 covert was too dense to see anything, so, having ascer- 



