HUNTING THE ELEPHANT. 169 



description shrinks. The whole face of the landscape was 

 covered with elephants. Every bare height and wooded 

 knoll had its groups, whilst the bottom of the valley dis- 

 played a living mass those colossal animals in the open 

 glades bearing in their trunks the branches of trees, with 

 which they indolently protect themselves from the flies. A 

 blue mountain range, lofty and precipitous, appeared in 

 the background, completing a picture that would have defied 

 the painter's art. 



To the eye of the sportsman, this magnificent scene had 

 a charm of sublimity which the mere sight-seer could 

 not have enjoyed. As we approached against the wind, 

 we were unobserved, and no alarm was excited until the 

 cows we had left thundered down the hill, and passed so 

 close to us, that we could not refrain from firing at one 

 of them, which, however, escaped with little injury. We 

 then prepared to attack this grand army of elephants. 

 Securing our horses on the summit of a stony ridge, and 

 then taking a stand on a ledge overlooking and command- 

 ing the wooded defile, we sent Carollus to drive the ani- 

 mals past us, so that we might select a bull. Slowly they 

 walked within about twenty yards of us, flapping their 

 large ears and twisting their tails to keep the flies off. 

 Nearly all were cows, many of them having calves. But 

 at length we saw a bull approach, and with a thrill of 

 sportmen's joy, we fired. The bull stopped, but the re- 



15 



