The Elephant 



puted, and concerning which many opinions have been 

 recorded — all dogmatic, and most of them contradictory. 

 Suppose that a homicidal elephant catches a fugitive whom 

 he pursues, how does he kill him, and is he invariably 

 destroyed ? The subject stated does not amount to much 

 in itself, but some points will appear in the course of a 

 brief inquiry into it that merit attention. All writers who 

 held to the instinctive hypothesis, and imagined that 

 brutes only acted in a predetermined way, have taken 

 .exclusive views of this matter. When a man is overtaken 

 by an elephant many say he is always killed. Sanderson, 

 for example, says so. Captain Wedderburn was killed. 

 Professor Wahlberg was killed. Everybody is killed; it 

 cannot be otherwise. Nevertheless, Colonel Walter Camp- 

 bell ("The Old Forest Ranger") saw a companion emerge 

 from beneath the feet of a rogue elephant, and Major 

 Leveson and Major Blayney Walshe (" Sporting and Mili- 

 tary Adventures in Nepaul") relate the incidents of like 

 cases. Henry Courtney Selous (" A Hunter's Wanderings 

 in Africa") lived to tell how this same good fortune attended 

 himself ; and Lieutenant Moodie was actually trampled in 

 the presence of several witnesses, and yet, although con- 

 siderably injured, escaped with his life. 



These were, of course, very unusual instances, and it 

 is undeniable that most people whom elephants catch 

 are killed. But how? Pressed to death with one of the 

 animal's forefeet, one authority declares ; with both of 

 them, another insists ; kicked forwards and backwards 

 between the hind and front legs till reduced to a pulp, 

 maintains a third ; transfixed with the tusks, kneeled upon, 



