196 TWO -TEARS IN THE JUJSTGLE. 



existing circumstances, of which he had not been fully aware. 

 Three days later, a coolie from Animallai brought me the letter 

 from Professor Ward, which contained the truant bill of exchange, 

 and it was at once dispatched to Madras to be cashed. I was 

 now ready to play what was very nearly my last card. 



There were no elephants in our forest, but across the river, two 

 miles away in the Government Forest, there were two herds. One 

 day we undertook to drive the smaller herd about a mile and make 

 it cross into our forest, so that we might kill one of the tuskers. 

 The plan was a good one, but I needed sixty men instead of six, 

 and practicallj' it wouldn't work. Then I determined to ask the 

 Madras Government for permission to kill an elephant in the 

 Government Forest. It was truly a forlorn hope, with all the 

 chances against its success. A month previous, young Mr. Wed- 

 derbuna, a son of the Collector of Coimbatore, had assured me 

 that it would be useless to ask his father for permission to kill an 

 elephant, because he was very much interested in "keddah opera- 

 tions" (elephant catching) and had never granted such a per- 

 mission to any one, although often asked to do so. I had no letters 

 of introduction, and no personal reputation whatever to recommend 

 me to the favorable notice of the Government authorities. If they 

 gi'anted the request I proposed to make, it would be only from 

 motives of pure charity, and not by reason of any claim I could es- 

 tablish. Without daring to hope my request would be granted, I 

 sat down and wrote the following letter : 



Camp in the Animallai Hills. 



November 8, 1877. 

 To A. Wedderburn, Esq., Collector of Coimhatare District. 



Dear Sir : At last I find myself compelled to address you on the subject 

 of wild elephants. Mr. Douglass * advised me to do so when I first came to 

 these hills, but I have refrained until now, hoping it woiild not be necessary. 

 Under the present circumstances I am forced to make a virtue of necessity and 

 beg your permission to shoot one or two male elephants in the Government 

 Forest. I feel justified in doing so by the following reasons : 



Although I am located in the forest belonging to the Rajah of Kulungud, 

 and have his written permission to kill two elephants in his territory, there are 

 no elephants here now, none have been here for weeks, and the chances are, 

 I will never find a herd in this small forest so full of people. On the con- 

 trary, there are two herds in the Government Forest that are likely to remain 

 some time, having already been there some days. 



My being a naturalist and not a sportsman, and working directly in the in* 



* Deputy Conservator of Forests. 



