One Dense Mass Of Elephants' Heads, In Full Career,
Presented Themselves Through The Shattered Barrier Of Creepers.
Running towards them with a loud holloa, they were suddenly checked by
our unexpected apparition, but the confused mass of elephants made the
shooting very difficult.
Two elephants rushed out to cross the little
nook within four yards of me, and I killed both by a right and left
shot. Wallace immediately pushed a spare rifle into my hand, just as a
large elephant, meaning mischief, came straight towards me, with ears
cocked, from the now staggered body of the herd. I killed her with the
front shot, both barrels having gone off at once, the heavy charge of
powder in the right-hand barrel having started the trigger of the left
barrel by the concussion. Round wheeled the herd, leaving their three
leaders dead; and now the race began.
It was a splendid forest, and the elephants rushed off at about ten
miles an hour, in such a compact troop that their sterns formed a living
barrier, and not a head could be seen. At length, after a burst of about
two hundred yards, the deep and dry bed of a torrent formed a trench
about ten feet in width.
Not hesitating at this obstacle, down went the herd without missing a
step; the banks crumbled and half-filled the trench as the leaders
scrambled across, and the main body rushed after them at an
extraordinary pace.
I killed a large elephant in the act of crossing; he rolled into the
trench, but struggling to rise, I gave him the other barrel in the nape
of the neck, which, breaking his spine, extinguished him.
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