148 
THE TUSKER WITHOUT A TAIL. 
On Friday, November 9th, 1B55, I had a most excit- 
ing adventure with a tuskcn After an early breakfast, I 
started at six o'clock a.m. to look for elephants with my 
battery of four guns, and after some time we hit upon a last 
night's track ; it got mixed up with others on the banks of a 
stream, and the kiu-ders did not seem to be carrying it on 
satisfactorily to themselves, when one of them suddenly 
struck upon a fresh track with the droppings not cold in 
the centre. We had not proceeded very far when the lead- 
ing karder (a Takedy man) suddenly retreated upon me ; 
I expected he had come on the elephant, but on stepping 
forward saw in a small open space a bear grubbing for food. 
After effectually accounting for him and another, we carried 
on the spoor of the elephant, and shortly came to signs that 
he was not far ahead ; we soon heard him, and then saw 
his great body through the bamboos. I ran on with the big 
rifle and waited for him on the other side of a clump, some 
fifteen yards or so from me, and on his head appearing, 
I saw he was a tusker ; I took a steady aim between the eye 
and ear and down he went, but from the way he fell I knew 
he was not killed. I ran up to him and put a couple of pro- 
jectiles behind his ear as he got on his legs again, but they 
failed to drop him, and then after firing another apparently 
well-placed shot which had not the slightest effect upon him, 
I became so excited and so afraid of losing him, that I fired 
one or two shots at random, and on attempting to reload 
found to my intense disgust that I had no more powder. 
I had foolishly brought out with me my small powder 
horn, forgetting that the large charges for elephants would 
soon empty it. 
I had now only one charge left. The elephant was so 
