A FIRST DAY’S ELEPHANT-SHOOTING. 
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stood aghast with their mouths open, and for a few 
seconds my position was certainly not an enviable 
one. Fortunately, however, the dogs took off the 
attention of the elephants, and just as they were 
upon me, I managed to spring into the saddle, ex¬ 
pecting every second to feel one of their trunks 
laying hold of my body. Kleinboy and Isaac, pale 
and almost speechless with fright, now handed me 
my two-grooved rifle, when I returned to the charge, 
and sent another brace of bullets into the wounded 
elephant, but Colesberg was extremely unsteady, and 
destroyed the correctness of my aim. 
6t The 6 friend,’ now seeming resolved to do some 
mischief, charged furiously, and pursued me several 
hundred yards I therefore deemed it proper to 
give her a gentle hint to act less officiously ; and, 
having loaded, and approached within thirty yards, 
I gave it to her sharp, right and left, behind the 
shoulder, upon which she at once made off, with 
drooping trunk, and evidently with a mortal wound. 
“ I never recur to this, my first day’s elephant 
shooting.” Gordon Gumming goes on to say, “ with¬ 
out regretting my folly in contenting myself with 
securing only one elephant. The first was dying 
and could not leave the ground; the second was 
also mortally wounded, and I had only to follow 
and finish her; but I foolishly amused myself with 
the first, which kept walking backwards, and stand¬ 
ing by every tree she passed. Two more shots settled 
her; on receiving these, she tossed her trunk up 
and down two or three times, and, falling on her 
broadside against a thorny tree, which yielded like 
