THE KOMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



of bestial power. Not only have the missionary, 

 the colonist, and the soldier encountered the 

 lordly animals in their progress into the wilder- 

 ness, but hunters, either for sport or profit, have 

 gone in search of them, bearded the lion by his 

 midnight fountain, and provoked the elephant to 

 single combat in his forest fastnesses. Fearful 

 adventures have hence ensued, the records of 

 which have thrilled us dwellers at 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, in- 

 furiated 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 shivering, and unable to 

 move, instead of galloping from the peril. Gordon 

 Cumming has depicted a stirring scene, in which, 

 having dismounted to fire at an elephant, he was 

 immediately charged by another ; his horse, terri- 

 fied 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 

 sometimes fail from terror, and he falls with his 

 rider; or, from the character of the forest, the 

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