ELEPHANTS. 177 



been brushed off the elephant's feet, as he passed over, 

 were quite fresh, and had not been washed away by a 

 recent shower, when the second Carder who was a few 

 yards in advance came rushing back the picture of 

 terror, and exclaimed " Ani " then pushed the rifle he 

 had been carrying into Atlay's hand, and bolted to the 

 rear. We advanced twenty yards, to the edge of a 

 glade, at the opposite side of which, calmly munch- 

 ing a bamboo, stood the tusker eighty yards off. The 

 glade was full of elephant creeper* and longish grass. 

 I then inquired how the wind was. Atlay caught 

 up some heavy leaves, and let them fall ; this convinced 

 me that he was suffering from his companion's 

 complaint, and he ought to have been forthwith 

 deprived of his rifle and sent to the rear. There was 

 hardly a breath of air, and I proposed stalking him for 

 the front shot, but Atlay recommended the ear so I 

 crept cautiously forward, and got behind a large tree 

 within a dozen yards of the tusker, who showed over 

 two feet of ivory, indicating that his tusks were about 

 five feet long. He fed slowly past towards the left, 

 but did not give an opening for the temple shot, his stern 

 being towards me, and I had no confidence in the rear-to- 

 front shot, at the back of the ear although as he halted to 

 eat another young bamboo shoot this was offered most 

 temptingly. At this stage I glanced round to see that 

 my second rifle was at hand, but to my intense disgust 

 found that the perfidious Atlay had withdrawn from the 

 competition, and had taken it off with him ! Five 

 minutes elapsed without a satisfactory chance for a shot 

 except one, when he suddenly turned round and examined 

 me intently, for about twenty seconds, during which 



* Bauliinia. 



