THE LION AND ELEPHANT. 
17 9 
was determined to try a second shot, which was fired 
by Captain Harris’s man, who was seated at the 
back of his master’s howdah. 
c ‘ This had the desired effect, for the gun was 
hardly discharged, when the lion, with a tremen¬ 
dous roar, sprang up from his lurking place, and 
in a second was once more on the head of Captain 
Harris’s elephant. But he was almost immediately 
shaken off, when he retreated to the same brake 
from whence he had issued, where, as before, 
he was no longer discernible. 
“ A shot was therefore directed towards the spot 
where he was supposed to lie, when he again 
charged the Captain’s elephant, and, on being dis¬ 
lodged, slowly trotted off towards the c patch ’ that 
harboured him in the first instance.* 
<c During the melee just described, Major Dela- 
maine, from the apprehension of hitting some one, 
had been deterred from firing ; but as the lion was 
retreating, he discharged both barrels of his double 
gun, and broke one of the hind legs of the beast. 
“ On receiving the wound, the lion immediately 
turned and rushing at the Major’s elephant, sprang 
# It seems singular that during the several lodgments made by 
the lion on the head of the elephant, its “ mahout,” or driver, 
whose seat is on the neck of the latter, should not have been de¬ 
stroyed, or atleast grievously injured by the beast, but the poorfellow’s 
safety was probably attributable to the ponderous ears of the 
elephant screening him from its sight. The “ mahout” and the 
lion, however, when the latter is lodged on the head of the elephant, 
come so nearly in contact, that the Major, as he told me, has, on 
more occasions than one, seen the man strike the brute on the head 
with the iron rod, about twelve inches in length, that he carries in 
his hand to direct the movements of the elephant.—E d. 
N 2 
