WE FIND THE ELEPHANTS. 205^. 



Drawing myself up behind a small tree, I stood on the bank with my rifle 

 ready. I could just distinguish the head of the owner of the nearest pair 

 of colossal understandings. Suddenly it struck me that the elephant was 

 watching me, as its head was turned in my direction, and I expected to hear 

 a shriek and a rush forward. I kept my rifle to my shoulder, intending to 

 fire both barrels, and if I failed in flooring it, to jump down into the nullah, 

 and with the second rifle stand on the opposite bank. However, as I waited, 

 my heart thumping against my ribs, the huge head swung lazily to one side 

 and back again, showing the half-closed, dozing eye. The elephant was a 

 female. As my intention was to get a tusker I left her in peace, and getting 

 quietly down, delighted with my first close peep at wild elepliants, I re- 

 gained the other bank, intending now to wait till the herd should move into 

 better ground. Jaffer, though a plucky fellow, had, like his master, never 

 seen elephants till now, and was not sorry to be relieved of his duty of 

 standing in the nullah with the second rifle, as he was afraid some of the 

 herd might come up it and take us in rear. 



We sat down and held a long consultation, when presently it struck us 

 that the elephants were very quiet, and when Bommay Gouda and I recon- 

 noitred their late position we found that they had moved off. It is 

 remarkable how quietly a herd of elephants will slip away, and how little 

 trace they leave of the passage of their huge bodies. These must have 

 obtained a slant of our wind ; but as this herd * was constantly in the 

 habit of visiting cultivation, near to the habitations of man, it did not 

 go far. 



We followed immediately, and shortly entered thinner jungle, inter- 

 spersed with large trees, where we came up with the elephants marching 

 sedately along, a few of the young ones wandering to right and left as food 

 tempted them. It was now about three o'clock in the afternoon and near 

 their feeding-time. They looked so different from tame elephants : instead 

 of being black, as the latter are from frequent washing, they were reddish, 

 owing to the dust with which they had covered their bodies. I scanned 

 them eagerly for a male elephant in vain, till the gleam of a pair of tusks 

 through a bush caught the quick eye of the lad Gorrava, and presently out 

 stalked a tusker ! He was not a large elephant, and by any but a young 

 hunter might have been passed unmolested, but his tusks settled him as my 

 victim. 



It was very difficult to approach this particular elephant, as the herd 

 was now scattered to browse, and whilst avoiding one we were liable to be 



* I captured these elephants in June 1874, as related in Chapter X., within a mile of the 

 place where I encountered them on this occasion. 



