THE RIFLE. 305 



proves how utterly ineffectual the leaden musket 

 ball, as used by soldiers, would be in the forest. 

 We have not the means of deciding whether the 

 difficulty which was experienced in killing that 

 elephant, is attributable to the inefficiency of the 

 weapons employed, or to the want of skill in the 

 storming party. Major Forbes hints that the 

 affair often proved a subject of mirth to the sports- 

 men in Ceylon ; and certainly it was calculated to 

 do so, if a single individual on foot allows a wild 

 elephant to charge within fifteen yards of him be- 

 fore firing at him. Captain Cornwallis Harris, in 

 his South African tour, in 1837, took with him a 

 double-barrelled rifle, carrying balls of two ounces 

 weight, and thus armed, the elephant and rhino- 

 ceros alike fell before him. Speaking of the fore- 

 head of the elephant, he says,* " A ball hard- 

 ened with tin or quicksilver readily penetrates to 

 the brain, and proves instantaneously fatal."^ He 

 gives instances of his killing large elephants at a 

 single shot, and seems to have had no difficulty 

 with the " king of beasts," which he has slain " in 

 every stage from whelphood to imbecility." Accord- 

 ing to Captain Cornwallis Harris, travelling through 

 countries infested by wild beasts is not so dangerous 

 as it is commonly thought to be. He says, indeed, 

 that during part of his journey, " scarcely a day 

 passed without our seeing two or three lions, but, 

 like the rest of the animal creation, they uniformly 



* Wild Sports of Southern Africa, by Captain William Cornwallis 

 Harris. London, 1839. 



f- The specific gravity of a ball is increased by compression. Those 

 made for the public service are hardened and weighted by compres- 

 sion. 



