The jungle is open and good, interspersed with plots of rank grass; and
quietly following the head tracker, into whose hands our friends have
committed themselves, they follow like hounds under the control of a
huntsman. The tracker is a famous fellow, and he brings up his employers
in a masterly manner within ten paces of the still unconscious
elephants. He now retreats quietly behind the guns, and the sport
begins. 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. In such an instance the sport is so soon
concluded that the only excitement consists in the cautious advance to
the attack through bad jungle.
As a rule, the pursuit of elephants through bad, thorny jungles should
if possible be avoided: the danger is in many cases extreme, although
the greater portion of the herd may at other times be perhaps easily
killed. There is no certainty in a shot. An elephant may be discerned by
the eye looming in an apparent mist formed by the countless intervening
twigs and branches which veil him like a screen of network. To reach the
fatal spot the ball must pass through perhaps fifty little twigs, one of
which, if struck obliquely, turns the bullet, and there is no answering
for the consequence. There are no rules, however, without exceptions,
and in some instances the following of the game through the thickest
jungle can hardly be avoided.
The character of the country in Ceylon is generally very unfavourable to
sport of all kinds. The length of the island is about two hundred and
eighty miles, by one hundred and fifty in width; the greater portion of
this surface is covered with impenetrable jungles, which form secure
coverts for countless animals.
The centre of the island is mountainous, torrents from which, form the
sources of the numerous rivers by which Ceylon is so well watered. The
low country is flat. The soil throughout the island is generally poor
and sandy.
This being the character of the country, and vast forests rendered
impenetrable by tangled underwood forming the principal features of the
landscape, a person arriving at Ceylon for the purpose of enjoying its
wild sports would feel an inexpressible disappointment.
Instead of mounting a good horse, as he might have fondly anticipated,
and at once speeding over trackless plains till so far from human
habitations that the territories of beasts commence, he finds himself
walled in by jungle on either side of the highway. In vain he asks for
information. He finds the neighbourhood of Galle, his first landing
place, densely populated; he gets into the coach for Colombo. Seventy
miles of close population and groves of cocoa-nut trees are passed, and
he reaches the capital. This is worse and worse--he has seen no signs of
wild country during his long journey, and Colombo appears to be the
height of civilisation. He books his place for Kandy; he knows that is
in the very centre of Ceylon--there surely must be sport there, he
thinks.
The morning gun fires from the Colombo fort at 5 A.M. and the coach
starts.
