not eat
pork, but all are particularly fond of venison. This the Moorman fully
understands, and overcomes all scruples by a general mixture of the
different meats, all of which he sells as venison. Thus no animal is
spared whose flesh can be passed off for deer. Fortunately, their guns
are so common that they will not shoot with accuracy beyond ten or
fifteen paces, or there would be no game left within a few years. How
these common guns stand the heavy charges of powder is a puzzle. A
native thinks nothing of putting four drachms down a gun that I should
be sorry to fire off at any rate. It is this heavy charge which
enables such tools to kill elephants which would otherwise be
impossible. These natives look upon a first-class English rifle with a
sort of veneration. Such a weapon would be a perfect fortune to one of
these people, and I have often been astonished that robberies of such
things are not more frequent.

There is much difference of opinion among Ceylon sportsmen as to the
style of gun for elephant-shooting. But there is one point upon which
all are agreed, that no matter what the size of the bore may be, all
the guns should be alike, and the battery for one man should consist of
four double-barrels. The confusion in hurried loading where guns are
of different calibres is beyond conception.

The size and the weight of guns must depend as much on the strength and
build of a man as a ship's armament does upon her tonnage; but let no
man speak against heavy metal for heavy game, and let no man decry
rifles and uphold smooth-bores (which is very general), but rather let
him say, "I cannot carry a heavy gun," and "I cannot shoot with a
rifle."

There is a vast difference between shooting at a target and shooting at
live game. Many men who are capital shots at target-practice cannot
touch a deer, and cannot even use the rifle as a rifle at live game,
but actually knock the sights out and use it as a smoothbore. This is
not the fault of the weapon; it is the fault of the man. It is a
common saying in Ceylon, and also in India, that you cannot shoot quick
enough with the rifle, because you cannot get the proper sight in an
instant.

Whoever makes use of this argument must certainly be in the habit of
very random shooting with a smoothbore. How can he possibly get a
correct aim with "ball" out of a smoothbore, without squinting along
the barrel and taking the muzzle-sight accurately? The fact is, t