339 
CHAPTER VII. 
ELEPHANT-SHOOTING- AT NIGHT—AMBUSHING FOE, GAME—THE 
AUTHOR’S EXPERIENCES AT THE “ SCREEN ’’—-DANGERS ATTEND¬ 
ANT ON NIGHT-SHOOTING—PERSONAL ADVENTURES—A CRITICAL 
POSITION—A SUCCESSFUL NIGHT’S SHOOTING—AN EVENTFUL 
EPOCH OF MY LIFE. 
M ANY elephants are also shot during the hours 
of darkness, on coming to the water to slake 
their thirst; which sport, I am free to confess, has 
always had more charms for me than even that of 
stalking those animals by broad daylight. Others, 
however, entertain a very different view of the matter. 
A great sportsman and a great traveller,* whose 
name I am not at liberty to mention, once told me 
(prefacing his pleasant remark with a “ saving your 
presence’ 3 ) that he considered ambushing for game 
at night nothing better than “ dirty poaching. 33 
But I must beg leave to differ from my friend, to 
whose superior judgment in most sporting matters I 
respectively bow, for I am quite sure he has had little 
or no experience in this kind of shooting; and, proba¬ 
bly, for this simple reason, that he is always richly 
* On asking the same gentleman what he thought of Dr. Living¬ 
stone, he returned me the following characteristic reply, “Well! to 
look at the man you would think nothing of him; but he is a plucky 
little devil.” 
