The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1886-04-08
shaking beneath his ponderous tread.

seemed to be right on me, down went
the trunk. Crack went my rifle, and
had to spring back pace or two to
prevent the huge beast from coming
right on top Of me as he fell stone dead
at my feet. The reaction was
great, my highly strung nerves
giving way when the elephant
came down as if cut with knife, and
the rifle fell from my shaking hands.
have learned better manners since.
Soon Jack came up and we had regu-
Lar war dance round the carcass. The
'nigger.' was sent up the nearest cocoa
nut and we quaffed beaker to the
pleasant passage of Jumbo's soul to the
elephants heaven Shooting an ele-
phant in a herd and shooting a rogue
elephant are two very different things.
| In the first place, as / have said, you
are not allowed to shoot an elephant in
herd under penalty of two hundred
and fifty dollars. the Government using
| all they can catch for the Public Works
Department. This is as it should be,
fcf, before the law was established,
there was wholesale slaughter among
the noble beasts. 1t was nothing but
| pot hunting, as the hunter would lie
in wait where the herd went to water
and then pick them off at his leisure,
and, as Ceylon elephants have no tusks
it was done in mere wantonness.
Major Rogers, of the Ceylon Rifles,
was a famous elephant shot in his day,
and he was credited with having slain
with his own gun over twelve hundred
elephants. This I believe to be well
authenticated fact. He once made a
bet that he would kill two elephants
with one shot. The way he did it was
to shoot the mother when the young
elephant was sucking her, and the
mother falling on her young one
crushed it to death
elephants are caught IN what are
| known as kraals. They are caught
either for use in the Public Works De-
partment, for service in the native
| temples, or for sale to some European
menagerie. When kraal is to be
| formed word is sent to the native head
man of the, village near where the
| kraal is to be built, and he, in his turn,
sends out hundreds of beaters. When
the herd to be operated on is located
the beaters form semi-circle and begin
| driving the animal slowly toward the
| kraal. Atnight they build watch fires,
| and between them the native patrol,
armed with white wands, which are
quite sufficient to keep the elephants
from breaking through. They gradu-
ally work them up toward the kraal,
which is an open space in the jungle
with some stout trees growing within
it. 1t is surrounded by strong stock
ade and has only narrow entrance.
| Into this the herd is driven. The herd
| is generally led by an old bull elephant
| and before any attempt to capture an
elephant is made this old gentleman
| must be shot. When the Duke of Edin-
burgh visited the island a kraal was
gotten upf for his especial benefit, and
III. r. FL. entered the kraal to shoot the
bull, but he missed and the bull very
nearly did away with young Guelph.
In fact he was right on him when a
timely shot, fred by native sitting
lup tree and armed with an old
flint musket, brought the bulls
career to an end. The bull got rid Of,
the next thing to do is to send in two
tame elephants, with their mahouss,
who single out the elephant to be capt
ured. The tame ones then 'scuddle'
up, one on each side, and profess great
friendship for. their wild companion,
| gradually pressing him or her closer and
closer until they have him fast. Then a
native slips in underneath and quickly
makes ropes fast to the wild ones legs,
and heis dragged by the tame ele-
plants to the nearest tree, where, after
being thrown to the ground, he is Sc
curely bound and left there to starve
for two or three days. He is then quite
tame, and when he rises up he il no
longer monarch of the forest but ele-
phant No. 999 Of the Public Works De-
partment, or the great Jumbo. ola trav-
cling circus.
..The sagacity Of elephants is pro-
verbal, but few who have not person
ally witnessed it can imagine how use
full they are to man In such places as
Ceylon. Without their aid it would
have been impossible for the Govern
ment to have covered the island,1 as it
has done, with splendid network of
roads and railways. In some places it
would have been impossible to have
transported machinery, and without
hoisting machinery the great blocks of
stone used in the foundations and but
tresses of bridges could not have been
moved-but here the elephant. came
| into play, and, I have seen the
noble beast at work on the
roads, moving a great block of
stone into position and standing
back and eyeing it. and then giving it
a gentle push, now on one side and now
on the other, until the stone was cor
rectly placed. An officer of the de-
partment told me that the most sa-
gacious thing he ever, knew an ele-
phant to do was on one occasion when
they were unloading some steel piping
from railway truck. The elephants
task was to carry the piping from be-
side the truck to a little farther up the
track. This he did by seizing the
piping with his trunk. But it SO hap
pened that the piping had been oiled in
order to prevent It rusting, SO that when
the elephant zcaught hold it. slipped
from his grasp. He thought for mo-
ment. and then his elephantine mind
solved the problem. Near the track
was d heap of sand; the animal kicked
lxi. =. 4 e.