Cuar. IIL] THE ELEPHANT. 139 
wait for travellers. In a moment he rushed forward to 
the road, trumpeting dreadfully, and seized my companion. I, 
who happened to be in the rear, took to flight, pursued by 
the elephant, which had already killed my companion by 
striking him against the ground. I had not moved more than 
seven or eight fathoms, when the elephant seized me, and threw 
me up with such force, that I was carried high into the air 
towards a Cahata tree, whose branches caught me and pre- 
vented my falling to the ground. By this I received no other 
injury than the dislocation of one of my wrists. Ido not know 
whether the elephant saw me after he bad hurled me away 
through the air; but certainly he did not come to the 
tree to which I was then clinging: even if he had come, he 
couldn’t have done me any more harm, as the branch on 
which I was was far beyond the reach of his trunk, and the 
tree itself too large for him to pull down. The next thing 
I saw was the elephant returning to the corpse of my com~ 
panion, which he again threw on the ground, and placing one 
of his fore feet on it, he tore it with his trunk limb ufter limb; 
and dabbled in the blood that flowed from the shapeless mass 
of flesh which he was still holding under his foot.” 
3. “In 1847 or ’46,” said another informant, “I was a 
superintendent of a coco-nut estate belonging to Mr. Armitage, 
situated about twelve miles from Negombo. A rogue elephant 
did considerable injury to the estate at that time; and one day, 
hearing that it was then on the plantation, a Mr. Lindsay, an 
Englishman, who was proprietor of the adjoining property, and 
myself, accompanied by some seven or eight people of the 
neighbouring village, went out, carrying with us six rifles 
loaded and primed. We continued to walk along a path which, 
near one of its turns, had some bushes on one side. We had 
calculated to come up with the brute where it had been seen 
half an hour before; but no sooner had one of our men, 
who was walking foremost, seen the animal at the distance 
of some fifteen or twenty fathoms, than he exclaimed, 
‘There! there!’ and immediately took to his heels, and we all 
