The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1910-01-15

leaving tHelI CdhtU WIFI uuu. 1ulS
gave US good idea of his height, pro-
vided he was normally constructed
animal. From these marks he did
not appear to be anything out of the
ordinary.
My knowledge of Malay was very
scanty, but one of the Dyaks could
speak quite decent English. This was
very fortunate, as otherwise | should
have lost what to me is most inter-
esting part of jungle shooting-i. e., to
hear what the native deduces from the
tracks as he goes along. Your game
has been feeding, bathing, sleeping; he
tells you roughly the time taken over
each of these functions, moving with
suspicion or otherwise; the native
reads the animals diary as you pro-
coed, and thus you can pretty soon
learn to make out good deal your
SELF but do not imagine that you will
then be able to do your own tracking,
or find your own way out of the Borneo
jungle, because you will not.
We gained bit that day, although
the jungle became pretty bad again,
but by the time we had camped that
night we were still, so the natives
estimated, nearly two days behind him.
This did not give much promise OF
shot on the morrow, but, as it turned
out, my luck was dead in" that trip.
We started off soon after daylight, and
at first matters did not look at all
rosy. The elephant had gone through
a bit of jungle that was practically a
swamp and consequently tracking be-
came difficult. After about an hour Of
this the tracks led us over series of
small hills and here we kept on 60
ing round in circles, as the elephant
had wandered about in search of food.
The Jungle on these hills was almost
the worst we had as yet encountered,
the fallen trees making progress es-
pecially difficult. What astonished me
considerably was to see what enormous
obstacles in height and breadth, such
huge beast as an elephant can
clear
On reaching the top of about the
highest hill we had as yet had to climb
(this, by the way, was really very
low one, as elephants do not take kind
ly to hills of any height-their weight
must tell a bit, l expect), my tracker
suddenly stopped. After careful ex-
animation of the ground, the natives
told me that the elephant had first fed
OH or thpn silent
during the heat of the day, then fed
again for another two hours, there
by stopping these some twelve hours.
It was decided take on only two
men, leaving the other three to follow
at an hours interval. The tracks be-
came so fresh that We had to proceed
very carefully as the elephant was
probably quite close to us. We pro-
ceeded thus for about three-quarters OF
an hour Suddenly crunch, crunch
the old chap was feeding not 200 yards
away. The crackers took off all i'm
pedimenta; the rifle came out OF It's
case and was handed to me, and my
heart began to thump a bit. A hur-
ried whispered consultation on the part
of the two crackers and We moved for
ward very slowly and cautiously, the
natives in their bare feet and quite
noiselessly and like cats; l. alas! IN
my shooting boots making more noise,
so I thought, than I had ever maze
before in my life. However. this was
only in my own imagination, as no
native will take you up to an elephant,
even when he is feeding. If you are
making noise enough to give the snow
away, and that requires very smaii
amount. The jungle here was very
dense: in fact, our range of vision only
extended to about two or three yaros
all around, and fully expected to take
my first view of the elephant from the
business end of his trunk.
We had got up to what afterWaro
proved to be within thirty yards OF
him, when we came across the 81
bugal River, which was here only about
ten feet wide and ankle deep. IN
fortunately the bottom was muddy, and
shall never forget the agony OF
suspense l endured as tried to pull
nv feet out each step without making
a souelch, the Dyak on the opposite
watching me with his eyes nearly COM
ing out of his head, SO great was MS
excitement. However, I got over all
right without disturbing the elephant;
but on climbing up the bank a fresh
obstacle awaited us in the shape OF an
enormous pig, and the swine stood
there and grunted at us. This natural
" made the elephant suspicious. and
he at once stopped feeding to listen.
The crackers did not hesitate mo-
ment. but crept forward, and sudden
" the leading one stopped and peck
$50 70 mo Those last few yards