296 WILD ANIMALS. 



fired several shots througli the grating. The elephant thus 

 attacked in the rear as well as the front, flew round the den with 

 the speed of a race-horse, uttering frightful yells and screams, 

 and stopping at intervals to bound from the back against the 

 front. The force of these rushes shook the entire building, and 

 excited the most terrifying expectation that he would bring 

 down the entire mass of wood and iron-work, and project himself 

 among his assailants. 



" After the discharge of about thirty balls, he stopped and sunk 

 deliberately on his haunches. Mr. Herring, conceiving that a 

 shot had struck him in a vital part, cried out : ' He's down, boys ! 

 he's down ! ' and so he was, but it was only for a moment ; he 

 leapt up with renewed vigour, and at least eighty balls were 

 successively discharged at him from different positions before he 

 fell a second time. Previous to that fall, Mr. Joshua Brookes had 

 arrived with his son, and suggested to Mr. Herring to aim 

 especially at the ear, at the eye, and at the gullet. 



" The two soldiers despatched from Somerset House by Mr. 

 Cross, came in a short time before Mr. Brookes, and discharged about 

 three or four rounds of ball-cartridge, which was all the ammunition 

 they had. It is a remarkable instance of the animal's subjection 

 to his keeper, that though in this deranged state, he sometimes 

 recognized Oartmell's cry of ' Chunee ! Chunee ! Chuneelah ! ' by 

 sounds with which he was accustomed to answer the call, and that 

 more than once, when CartmeU called out ' Bite Chunee ! bite ! ' 

 wliich was his ordinary command to the elephant to kneel, he 

 actually knelt, and in that position received the balls in the parts 

 particularly desired to be aimed at. CartmeU, therefore, kept 

 himself as much as possible out of view as one of the assailants, 

 in order that his voice might retain its wonted ascendency. He 

 and Newsam, and their comrades took every opportunity of 

 thrusting at him. CartmeU, armed with a sword at the end of a 

 pole, which he afterwards affixed to a rifle, pierced him several 

 times. 



" On the elephant's second fall, he lay with his face towards the 

 back of the den, and with one of his feet thrust out between the 

 bars, so that the toes touched the menagerie floor. At this time 



