CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 181 



or one that an elephant would not have knocked 

 down without effort. Mature reflection after- 

 wards convinced me that the animals had never 

 meant charging at all, but were merely panic- 

 stricken and trying to escape, choosing my 

 direction by mere coincidence. Had they really 

 meant mischief, they would have come on 

 screaming and with trunks curled in the air. 

 They did neither, but came with trunks down 

 and without uttering a sound. All the same, 

 there was no time for these comforting reflec- 

 tions at the moment, for in a very few seconds 

 they were almost on top of me, leaving me 

 barely time to reload one barrel of my rifle, 

 the ejector of which fortunately worked well. 

 I then fired at the chest of the leading bull, 

 the one with the long, thin tusks, with the idea 

 of turning him on one side. The shot was a 

 lucky one, as it went through the trunk and 

 lodged at the juncture of chest and neck. On 

 firing, I jumped on one side, but quite un- 

 necessarily as it proved, for on being hit he 

 stumbled to his knees, then, immediately re- 

 covering himself, went off faster than ever, 

 followed, to my intense relief, by the tuskless 

 one. A little later we found him stone dead 

 about 1 50 yards from the spot, and I afterwards 

 found that, when hit, he had been within ten 

 paces of me ! 



"It was too late to cut out the tusks that 

 evening, as we were a long way from camp, 

 which I reached, very wet and tired, about 

 seven in the evening, having covered in all 

 some twenty-five miles, much of it through 



