48 THE ELEPHANT 



terrified and paralysed to offer resistance. Again, 

 in certain portions of the country, an enormous 

 iron weapon, like the blade of a gigantic spear 

 weighted with a heavy mass of clay, is dropped 

 either by a concealed native from a high tree, 

 or so fixed to a horizontal limb that, on the 

 disturbance of a cord stretching across the path, 

 it is displaced and falls, if favourably, just at 

 the junction of the head with the elephant's 

 body. The animal so stricken rushes madly 

 through the forest, each movement burying the 

 terrible point deeper and deeper in the flesh, 

 until at length the victim either bleeds to death 

 or succumbs to injury resulting to the spine. 

 Writers on North Africa tell of an extraordinary 

 race of Arabs, formerly dwellers on the borders 

 of Abyssinia, who hunted the elephant on horse- 

 back with no other weapon than a heavy two- 

 edged sword. Their method consisted of follow- 

 ing the herd until close up, when the hunter 

 by a slashing blow would sever the main tendon 

 of the elephant's hind -leg, thus rendering it 

 powerless to advance or, indeed, to move. It 

 was then despatched. This has always struck 

 me as being a magnificent performance, and 

 one in comparison with which the finest achieve- 

 ments of the Spanish bull-ring pale into insigni- 

 ficance. 



The hunting of elephants according to modern 

 ideas is assuredly one of the most exciting and 

 engrossing of all forms of sport. Not only is 

 their pursuit attended by an amount of fatigue 

 and, at times, hardship which would not be 



