ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 43 



and our beautiful little garden a trampled waste. We 

 not being there — though with his keen sense of smell he 

 must have been aware of our very recent presence — he 

 vented his rage on all he found, levelling everything, 

 furious at being delayed in his excursion to the low country, 

 and the feast of growing crops and wild plantains he had 

 promised himself there. Trees were uprooted, branches 

 were torn down and thrown about, and the ground looked 

 as if it had been ploughed up — all showing how much 

 would have now been left of us but for the quick eye that 

 noticed the destroyer's tracks. No one was safe with 

 him about, for he could go just where he liked ; very fast, 

 moreover ; and he was in an even worse frame of mind 

 than ' rogues ' usually are. He would ravage the fields 

 below unchecked — for who dare hinder him ? — and the 

 villages would be deserted at the first suspicion of his 

 proximity. But his career was to be over now, and no 

 one could regret it. 



After the ' rogue ' was shot, falling to the first bullet 

 put through his brain, F. told me that the Mussulman 

 peon, who was standing beside him when he fired, im- 

 mediately walked up to the elephant and touched an eye- 

 ball with his finger — a conclusive test of death, or at least 

 of insensibility, but it was a daring thing to do. The peon 

 scorned the idea of danger when I spoke to him of it, in 

 wonder, saying that he ' knew the elephant had gone to 

 Jehannum [hell], so what was there to fear % ' His 'sahib 

 could not miss.' 



This ' rogue ' had but one tusk, and that only a stump ; 

 it had probably been snapped off in one of a hundred 

 tussles, was yellowed with age, scored all over, and of 

 enormous weight ; the other was missing altogether, being 

 clean broken away. The four feet were converted into 

 comfortable footstools, being stuffed, and covered at the 

 top with panther-hide. 



