198 TWO TEARS liN" THE JUNGLE. 



no great loss for the Government to give me one, as elephants 

 may never be caught on the Animallais, jet it would have been an 

 easy and natural thing for the Governor and Executive Council 

 to have refused my rather cool request. But the favor was granted, 

 cordially, gracefully, and promptly. And the people of Northern 

 India and Ceylon caU this the Benighted Presidency ! Then my 

 worst wish for them is, that the same darkness may overtake them 

 soon. 



Two days after the above-mentioned order came to hand, we 

 moved our camp to Sungam, a timber depot and elephant camp in 

 the Government Forest, near which were the wild elephants. 

 Learning the general whereabouts of a large herd, we equipped 

 ourselves for the chase with cooked food, knives, blankets, ham- 

 mock, ropes, etc., and set out to find the trail, determined to bring 

 down a tusker before returning. It was a memorable chase, an 

 appropriate ending of my laborious work in those hills, and I am 

 tempted to narrate its chief incidents. 



We found the trail where it crossed the road, within a mile of 

 Toonacadavoo, and led straight away into Curran Shola, a wide 

 tract of wild, tangled, and fearfully hilly jungle, which I had never 

 before penetrated. In one place Vera and Channa did some very 

 skilful tracking. This was in a bit of dense jungle where the earth 

 was as bare, smooth, and hard as a base-ball ground, upon which 

 the soft, rubber-like feet of the elephants left scarcely any impres- 

 sion. In this spot, the herd had scattered and fed all around over 

 several acres, and the trackers had great difficulty in finding the 

 direction finally taken by the herd. But they ciphered it out at 

 last and on we went. 



In passing through a stretch of fine, lofty, bamboo forest, we 

 came to a place where the elephants had apparently started to make 

 a clearing. On a space of nearly two acres in extent, nearly every 

 bamboo, old and young, had been pulled down and smashed to 

 spHnters, and their long, green stems lay twisted, torn, and piled 

 in dire confusion. WTiole clumps had been puUed down, a stem at 

 a time, just for fun. The place looked as if a small cyclone had 

 struck it. 



About noon we came upon a portion of the herd feeding upon a 

 steep hiU-side, and, taking up a position on the opposite slope but 

 quite near by, we rested and watched them. Unfortunately there 

 was no tusker in this lot, nor even a "muckna," or tuskless male. 

 As we sat on the steep hiU-side, the elephants fed toward us, but 



