162 TWO TEAKS IN THE JUNGLE. 



the herd was only a half-hour in advance of us — and the trail crossed 

 the river into the Government Forest, of course ! "We gave it up 

 that day, but the next morning we took up the trail where we had 

 left it the previous evening, and followed it rather leisurely for 

 some hours, just to see where it would finally lead to. That herd 

 was the lai'gest I ever saw on those hills, containing between forty 

 and fifty elephants, five or six of which were tuskers. In some 

 jilaces it left a trail like the track of a small hurricane, mowing 

 down the tall- grass in a swath a hundred feet wide, pulling down and 

 smashing scores of old bamboos in one place, just for the fun of 

 the thing, and, stranger still, we saw several saplings the size of a 

 man's arm or larger which had been half uprooted and borne down 

 to the ground. 



The herd had made a -vdde circuit through a corner of the Gov- 

 ernment Forest, and just before thej'' quitted it they had done 

 still further mischief. They visited a camp of wood-cutters on the 

 bank of the Toonacadavoo River, where there were four large huts 

 for the accommodation of over fifty men. We found the huts torn 

 and smashed all to pieces, and of the long row of round stones on 

 which the men set their chatties of rice to cook, every stone had 

 been displaced and rolled about by those rascally elephants. 



From the huts, the elephants had turned off westward and 

 headed straight for Cochin. In one place we saw where an old 

 tusker had been bai'king a tree with his tusks, just for amusement, 

 and once where he had thrust them into a bank of earth for a foot 

 or more. Again we came to where he had lain him down to sleep 

 and left a very perfect impression of his right tusk in the moist 

 earth. The trail led us through all sorts of places, and finally 

 crossed the boundary into Cochin. At last, we overhauled the herd 

 as it was feeding along a rather steep, grassy hill-side, which was 

 strewn here and there with rugged rocks, a capital situation. But 

 alas ! we were on forbidden territoiy again. Cochin this time, and 

 once more that fine loomed up before our eyes. Apart from the 

 fine, I had no conscientious scruples about the matter, for when an 

 elephant roams through four temtories in one day, to which does 

 he belong more than to the others ? I argued the question, gave 

 it up, and decided to kill one of those elephants if possible, take its 

 skeleton for my collection, and if caught, pay the fine and call it 

 square, although financially it might prove a losing game. 



We posted ourselves among some large rocks, well in advance 

 of the elephants, and waited for them to feed up toward ua 



