THE GREAT HERBIVORES 153 
once more I had escaped without serious injury. Luckily for 
me the bull had made a bad shot; his tusks had gone through 
both coat and waistcoat on either side of my body; had they 
been a couple of inches either to the right or the left he would 
have pierced me through and through, and there would have 
been an end of Carl Hagenbeck. 
On another occasion—it was in the eighties—-one of my 
elephants proved so dangerous that I was reluctantly com- 
pelled to sign his death warrant. The beast in question was 
a large working elephant, a male standing about seven and 
a half feet high. He had more than once given proof of his 
vicious temper, and one day he brought the matter to a climax 
by attacking and nearly killing one of the keepers. The man 
was only saved by the promptitude and courage with which 
another keeper, who had the power of influencing and soothing 
the elephant, came to the rescue. The animal was out of the 
stables at the time of this occurrence, and naturally he had 
to be conducted back to his stall with the greatest caution. 
Rapes and bread were given him in the hope of appeasing his 
wrath, but some stout ropes were brought along too. One of 
these was fastened to a hindleg, and another to a foreleg. 
I then went ahead with the rope attached to the foreleg, and 
on reaching the stable I wound it round an iron post, so that, 
in the event of the brute breaking loose from his drivers, his 
range of action would at least be limited to the neighbourhood 
‘of the stable. At last the elephant reached his stall and the 
rope on the hindleg was quickly passed through a ring attached 
to the wall. At this moment the fury of the giant broke out 
afresh. By the side of him stood two other elephants, and 
being securely bound, both before and behind, he launched his 
mighty weight sideways against the nearer of these with such 
energy that this other elephant—who was as large as the 
great hooligan himself—fell flat upon her side, and nearly upset 
the further one as well. I had seen some proofs of elephant 
prowess before, but never anything quite equal to this. 
One naturally dislikes putting an end toa valuable animal, 
