I Saw In An Instant That The Only Road To His Brain Lay Through His Upper Jaw, In The Position In Which He Was Standing; And Knowing That He Would Discover Me In Another Moment, I Took The Eccentric Line For His Brain, And Fired Upward Through His Jaw.

He fell stone dead, with the silk patch of the rifle smoking in the wound.

Now in this position no light gun could have killed that elephant; the ball had to pass through the roots of the upper grinders, and keep its course through hard bones and tough membranes for about two feet before it could reach the brain; but the line was all right, and the heavy metal and charge of powder kept the ball to its work.

This is the power which every elephant-gun should possess: it should have an elephant's head under complete command in every attitude.

There is another advantage in heavy metal; a heavy ball will frequently stun a vicious elephant when in full charge, when a light ball would not check him; his quietus is then soon arranged by another barrel. Some persons, however, place too much confidence in the weight of the metal, and forget that it is necessary to hold a powerful rifle as straight as the smallest gun. It is then very common during a chase of a herd to see the elephants falling tolerably well to the shots, but on a return for their tails, it is found that the stunned brutes have recovered and decamped.

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