TERRORS OF ELEPHANT-HUNTING. 247 



home by our winter firesides. One or two of these I may 

 select for illustration of the terrible in natural history. 



Nothing is more appalling in the way of animal voices 

 than the scream, or " trumpeting/' as it is called, of an 

 enraged elephant. The hunting of this animal in South 

 Africa is awful work. To stand in front of a creature 

 twelve feet high, infuriated to the utmost, to hear his 

 shriek of rage, to see him come crashing on with an 

 impetus that throws the very trees out of the ground, 

 needs all the nerve and all the courage that man can 

 bring to the conflict. Livingstone says that the terrible 

 "trumpet" is more like what the shriek of a French 

 steam-whistle would be to a man standing on a railway, 

 than any other earthly sound. So confounding is it, that 

 a horse unused to the chase will sometimes stand shiver- 

 ing, and unable to move, instead of galloping from the 

 peril. Gordon Gumming has depicted a stirring scene, 

 in which, having dismounted to fire at an elephant, he 

 was immediately charged by another ; his horse, terrified 

 by being thus placed between two enraged monsters, 

 refused to be mounted ; and it was only when he expected 

 to feel a trunk clasping his body, that he managed to 

 spring into the saddle. 



Even when mounted, the legs of the steed will some- 

 times fail from terror, and he falls with his rider ; or, 

 from the character of the forest, the latter may be dragged 

 from his seat during the flight, and thus be left helpless 

 before the furious beast, exposed to be inpaled by the long 

 tusks, or crushed into a mummy by the enormous feet. 



