A cloud of smoke from a regular volley, a crash through the
splintering branches as the panic-stricken herd rush from the scene of
conflict, and it is all over. X. has killed two, Y. has killed one, and
Z. knocked down one, but he got up again and got away; total, three
bagged. Our friends now return to the tent, and, after perhaps a month
of this kind of shooting, they arrive at their original headquarters,
having bagged perhaps twenty elephants. They give their opinion upon
elephant-shooting, and declare it to be capital sport, but there is no
danger in it, as the elephants INVARIABLY RUN AWAY.
Let us imagine ourselves in the position of the half-asleep and
unsuspecting herd. We are lying down in a doze during the heat of the
day, and our senses are half benumbed by a sense of sleep. We are
beneath the shade of a large tree, and we do not dream that danger is
near us.
A frightful scream suddenly scatters our wandering senses. It is a rogue
elephant upon us! It was the scream of his trumpet that we heard! and he
is right among us. How we should bolt! How we should run at the first
start until we could get a gun! But let him continue this pursuit, and
how long would he be without a ball in his head?
It is precisely the same in attacking a herd of elephants or any other
animals unawares; they are taken by surprise, and are for the moment
panic-stricken. But let our friends X., Y., Z., who have just bagged
three elephants so easily, continue the pursuit, hunt the remaining
portion of the herd down till one by one they have nearly all fallen to
the bullet--X., Y., Z. will have had enough of it; they will be blinded
by perspiration, torn by countless thorns, as they have rushed through
the jungles determined not to lose sight of their game, soaked to the
skin as they have waded through intervening streams, and will entirely
have altered their opinion as to elephants invariably running away, as
they will very probably have seen one turn sharp round from the
retreating herd, and charge straight into them when they least expected
it. At any rate, after a hunt of this kind they can form some opinion of
the excitement of the true sport.
The first attack upon a herd by a couple of first-rate elephant-shots
frequently ends the contest in a few seconds by the death of every
elephant. I have frequently seen a small herd of five or six elephants
annihilated almost in as many seconds after a well-planned approach in
thick jungle, when they have been discovered standing in a crowd and
presenting favourable shots.
