In Dense Jungles, Where The Elephant Cannot See A Yard Before Him, The Sensitive Trunk Feels The Hidden Way, And When The Roaring Of Waterfalls Admonishes Him Of The Presence Of Ravines And Precipices, The Never-Failing Trunk Lowered Upon The Around Keeps Him Advised Of Every Inch Of His Path.

Nothing is more difficult than to induce a tame elephant to cross a bridge which his sagacity assures him is insecure; he will sound it with his trunk and press upon it with one foot, but he will not trust his weight if he can perceive the slightest vibration.

Their power of determining whether bogs or the mud at the bottom of tanks are deep or shallow is beyond my comprehension. Although I have seen elephants in nearly every position, I have never seen one inextricably fixed in a swamp. This is the more extraordinary as their habits induce them to frequent the most extensive morasses, deep lakes, muddy tanks and estuaries, and yet I have never seen even a young one get into a scrape by being overwhelmed. There appears to be a natural instinct which warns them in their choice of ground, the same as that which influences the buffalo, and in like manner guides him through his swampy haunts.

It is a grand sight to see a large herd of elephants feeding in a fine lake in broad daylight. This is seldom witnessed in these days, as the number of guns have so disturbed the elephants in Ceylon that they rarely come out to drink until late in the evening or during the night; but some time ago I had a fine view of a grand herd in a lake in the middle of the day.

I was out shooting with a great friend of mine, who is a brother-in-arms against the game of Ceylon, and than whom a better sportsman does not breathe, and we had arrived at a wild and miserable place while en route home after a jungle trip. Neither of us was feeling well; we had been for some weeks in the most unhealthy part of the country, and I was just recovering from a touch of dysentery: altogether, we were looking forward with pleasure to our return to comfortable quarters, and for the time we were tired of jungle life. However, we arrived at a little village about sixty miles south of Batticaloa, called "Gollagangwelléwevé" (pronunciation requires practice), and a very long name it was for so small a place; but the natives insisted that a great number of elephants were in the neighborhood.

They also declared that the elephants infested the neighboring tank even during the forenoon, and that they nightly destroyed their embankment, and would not be driven away, as there was not a single gun possessed by the village with which to scare them. This looked all right; so we loaded the guns and started without loss of time, as it was then one P. M., and the natives described the tank as a mile distant.

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