Idaho semi-weekly world., 1893-12-05

lHE ELETHANf SHAfUEs
layas, but in Burmah, Siam and Anam hs
is still to be found roaming the great for
ests and fertiletracts lying along the small
er streams Of the two former countries and
the Mekong river of the latter Owing to
the lack of proper weapons for killing the
enormous animal, the natives are victims
of his greediness and ferocity when his dep
relations are resented. They say that when
the elephant has once killed man his
thirst for slaughter is as great as that of the
tiger, and that some Of them have been
known to slay as many as hundred hu-
man beings These are called warrior ele-
plants" ;id aic usually the leaders of the
herds, and enormous bulls. Forsaking the
forests, they visit the vicinity of the vii
lagos, where they lay waste the orchards
and fields just when the early crops are
ready for harvesting and the young shoots
of the trees afford more delicate pasturage
than the ordinary feeding grounds.
1t was while the writer. with several other
Englishmen on hunting expedition from
Hue, the capital of Anam, says the London
correspondent of the st. Louis Globe Demo-
crat, was encamped near the little town of
Ke Vinh, situated on the borders of the
forest of the Mekong, that the news came
of large herd of elephants that had the
night before fallen on an orchard and
ruined it after killing the owner and chas-
ing away his wife and the servants. The
runner that brought the story declared that
the herd was still in the neighborhood and
implored us in the name of the community
to go and kill the beasts. Their confidence
in our prowess, or perhaps in our weapons,
as well as the desire to encounter such no
BILE game, made us promise that we would
proceed at once against the elephants. The
natives sent us an assistant-a big black
fellow known as Freebah-who enjoyed
something of a reputation as an elephant
hunter and whose knowledge of the lay OF
the country and the habits of the animals
proved invaluable.
Visiting the orchard that had been de-
stroyed the night before, we found the trees
torn up by the roots in many instances,
which Freebah said was wanton mischief
on the part of the beasts, as in order to
reach the branches on which they feed it
was only necessary for them to extend the
trunk and to tear off with this the tender
est shoots and twigs. The ground looked
as If it had been plowed up by steam
plow gone crazy, and the fences lay in long
lines on the boundaries, having been pulled
up bodily and left. Freebah, after an ex-
animation of the ground about, finally an
.nounced that the elephants had withdrawn
INTO the forest, so set out for it's depths,
following the line of crushed vegetation
that showed the passage of the herd, with
mere and there tree stripped OF its foliage.
Inc depths of these great forests are as dim
as cathedral, some spots never seeing the
sun from one years end to another, making
them, as may be supposed, very damp and
marshy, so that we were soon plunged to
our boot tops in thick, rich mud that i'm
peded our progress, but the greatest diff
Guilty we experienced from this was that we
lost trace finally of the elephants, and when
at last we ran into the herd it was SO unex-
pected that we surprised them as well as
ourselves.
They numbered half dozen, of which
TOUR were cows, the other two, however, be-
ing splendid bulls. The females were lying
down, while the bulls grazed near at hand
freebah uttered a warning cry, at which
we made ready our guns, and the cows en-