In The Same Instant, As I Dropped My Empty Rifle, A Double-Barrelled Gun Was Pushed Into My Hand, And I Ran Up To Him, Just In Time To Catch Him As He Was Half Risen.

Feeling sure of him, I ran up within two yards of his head and fired into his forehead.

To my amazement he jumped quickly up, and with a loud trumpet he rushed towards the jungle. I could just keep close alongside him, as the grass was short and the ground level, and being determined to get him, I ran close to his shoulder, and, taking a steady shot behind the ear, I fired my remaining barrel. Judge of my surprise!--it only increased his speed, and in another moment he reached the jungle: he was gone. He seemed to bear a charmed life. I had taken two shots within a few feet of him that I would have staked my life upon. I looked at my gun. Ye gods! I had been firing SNIPE SHOT at him. It was my rascally horse-keeper, who had actually handed me the shot-gun, which I had received as the double-barrelled ball-gun that I knew was carried by a gun-bearer. How I did thrash him! If the elephant had charged instead of making off I should have been caught to a certainty.

This day's shooting was the last day of good sport that I ever had at Minneria. It was in June, 1847. The next morning I moved my encampment and started homewards. To my surprise I saw a rogue elephant drinking in the lake, within a quarter of a mile of me; but the Fates were against his capture. I stalked him as well as I could, but he winded me, and came on in full charge with his trunk up. The heavy rifle fortunately turned but did not kill him, and he escaped in thorny jungle, through which I did not choose to follow.

On my way to the main road from Trincomalee to Kandy I walked on through the jungle path, about a mile ahead of my followers, to look out for game. Upon arriving at the open country in the neighbourhood of Cowdellai, I got a shot at a deer at a killing distance. She was not twenty yards off, and was looking at me as if spellbound. This provided me with venison for a couple of days. The rapid decomposition of all things in a tropical climate renders a continued supply of animal food very precarious, if the produce of the rifle is alone to be depended upon. Venison killed on one day would be uneatable on the day following, unless it were half-dressed shortly after it was killed; thus the size of the animal in no way contributes to the continuation of the supply of food, as the meat will not keep. Even snipe killed on one morning are putrid the next evening; the quantity of game required for the subsistence of one person is consequently very large.

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