XIII 
STIRRING TIMES AT LECUNDI 
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drew a portion of the brain matter. I, myself, made 
a most careful examination and satisfied myself 
beyond all doubt that both bullets had smashed 
through the cerebrum. Now these solid, nickel- 
covered bullets weighed 750 grains each, and were 
driven at a muzzle-velocity of considerably over 
2000 feet per second, and how an animal could 
travel several hundred yards and live for fully half 
an hour after receiving such terrible wounds, I 
cannot for a moment imagine. 
Though it is my experience that in ninety-eight 
cases out of a hundred, a bullet through the brain 
instantly kills an elephant, on two or three occasions 
I have pierced the brains of large elephants with 
small bore bullets without dropping the animals, 
and have been obliged to finish them off after¬ 
wards. 
I may here add that, after every kill, I most 
minutely scrutinize the course and effects of the 
bullets, and the sum of my experience has taught me 
that, even with the best and most powerful of modern 
rifles, I can never be absolutely certain of stopping a 
S 
charging elephant. 
II 
About three o’clock next afternoon, some of my 
men, who had gone back to chop the tusks out of 
the first elephant shot on the previous day, returned 
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