d giving me much trouble. On receiving the ball the elephant
shrugged his shoulder, and made off at a free, majestic walk. This shot
brought several of the dogs to my assistance which had been following
the other elephants, and on their coming up and barking another headlong
charge was the result, accompanied by the never-failing trumpet as
before In his charge he passed close to me, when I saluted him with a
second bullet in the shoulder of which he did not take the slightest
notice. I now determined not to fire again until I could make a steady
shot; but, although the elephant turned repeatedly, "Sunday" invariably
disappointed me, capering so that it was impossible to fire. At length,
exasperated, I became reckless of the danger, and, springing from the
saddle, approached the elephant under cover of a tree and gave him a
bullet in the side of the head, when, trumpeting so shrilly that the
forest trembled, he charged among the dogs, from whom he seemed to fancy
that the blow had come; after which he took up a position in a grove of
thorns, with his head toward me. I walked up very near, and, as he was
in the act of charging (being in those days under wrong impressions as
to the impracticability of bringing down an elephant with a shot in the
forehead), stood coolly in his path until he was within fifteen paces of
me, and let drive at the hollow of his forehead, in the vain expectation
that by so doing I should end his career. The shot only served to
increase his fury--an effect which, I had remarked, shots in the head
invariably produced; and, continuing his charge with incredible
quickness and impetuosity, he all but terminated my elephant-hunting
forever. A large party of the Bechuanas who had come up, yelled out
simultaneously, imagining I was killed, for the elephant was at one
moment almost on the top of me: I, however, escaped by my activity, and
by dodging round the bushy trees. As the elephant was charging, an
enormous thorn ran deep into the sole of my foot the old Badenoch
brogues, which I that day sported, being worn through, and this caused
me severe pain, laming me throughout the rest of the conflict.

The elephant held on through the forest at a sweeping pace; but he was
hardly out of sight when I was loaded and in the saddle, and soon once
more alongside. About this time I heard Isaac blazing away at another
bull; but when the elephant charged, his cowardly heart failed him, and
he very soon made his app