Miscellaneous notes. iei 



About 8 a.m. on the 4th May, I left my comfortable, if somewhat airy 

 quarters in the Burmese rest-house at Kummongyun accompanied by a track- 

 er, two local hunters, two villagers carrying my tiffin basket and my Burmese 

 servant who acted as interpreter. I carried a hammerless double 8-bore rifle by 

 Greener weighing 16^ lbs. but beautifully balanced, the tracker had my double 

 '577, and the rest carried weapons of the pop-gun description in which, however 

 they appeared to place a confidence it would have been a sin to deprecate. 



Our information was that 2 miles distant seven elephants including a tusker 

 had been seen the previous evening near the hamlet and rice-fields of 

 Myoungyi, and to this place we trudged across country alternating in paddy 

 fields and khine grass. Here further enquiries were made, and then we pro- 

 ceeded to some high half-burnt khine intersected with numerous old 

 elephant tracks. The ground was very rough and the khine stubborn and 

 difficult to get through, but we soon came on fresh tracks which we lost 

 after following them for an hour. The sun by this time was beginning to 

 make itself felt, and I was glad to avail myself of my water bottle. After 

 some little delay and a dispute between the tracker and the local hunters we 

 again found fresh tracks, which led us about 11 a,m, to a large irregular 

 track of high khine bordered by a thin belt of jungle. The tracker went up 

 a tree, and after a long observation, came to the conclusion that the tusker 

 was not far off. The khine was too high for the elephants to be seen 

 but the movement of it in certain directions indicated their presence. 



Now following the tracks into the khine meant taking the first beast that 

 presented itself, and as this was not my object, we decided to burn the khine 

 on the side where we thought the tusker was ; and to watch the operation 

 from the secure, if somewhat ignoble, position of the tree-tops. 



Three men were sent round to burn the khine, and I with my Burmese 

 servant took up a position in one tree while the tracker went up another. 



No sooner had the khine begun to btirn than a commotion in the high 

 khine showed the presence of elephants and through the occasional clearings 

 I saw four elephants emerging and coming straight for my tree. A female led, 

 then came the tusker closely followed by two more females, one of which 

 was only half-grown. At this juncture, one of the Burmans in another tree 

 who had descended to get my water bottle, began climbing my tree, and hear- 

 ing that the elephants were in sight got flurried and made a noise, with the 

 result that the elephants turned off at right angles to the left and went a 

 quarter of a mile to some trees from whence they emerged to continue their 

 original direction. 



We then left the trees and burnt the khine on three sides to drive out the 

 remaining three elephants, but though we waited anxiously for an hour until 

 nearly all the khine was burnt they broke back and went away to the right. 



Now we took up and followed the tracks of the four elephants to the trees 

 where finding shade and water we were both ready and glad to tackle our 

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