Evening star., 1925-04-19
BY oRRIN DENNY.

L was my intention when L landed
at Colombo, in the southern por-
tion of Ceylon, to go into the in
Il terror on an extensive hunt for
elephants. For l had heard that
there were still many herds of tusk-
erS to be found in the vicinity of Ham
bantota. with occasionally an outlaw
or rogue" elephant at large and do
ing enormous damage to the cultivat-
ed patches of the natives.
Although l had hunted elephants in
other countries, and knew the hard
ships and dangers to be encountered,
felt it should not be especially diff
cult for me to dispose of at least one
of the huge animals.
NaiVely, and diSregarding past eX-
perience, l thought that all l had to
do was to place my .470 rife behind
an elephants ear, pull the trigger.
and then climb upon him and have
my picture taken. But / was to have
other experiences before my encoun-
ter with lone elephant. which was
quite different from what l had antici-
pated.
Rogue elephants had been pro-
scribed by the Ceylon government,
and any one desiring a free permit to
Kill one and little excitement was
accommodated. The rogue" is usu-
ally bull elephant that has broken
away from the herd or has been cast
out by the younger bulls. He roams
at large, plundering crops and de-
stroying native Shambas, and in many
cases trampling out the lives of ma
tiYeS.
After obtaining a license from the
government, l hastily organized my
shikari native guides) and boarded a
train, but found no elephant awaiting
me upon my arrival, nor did 1 easily
md any one who knew anything
about one. Not being versed in the
language, and my own servant also
being ignorant of it, l found it very
difficult to get definite information
FINALLY met an old man who said he
knew what / wanted and who offered
TO accompany me to the spot.
Getting my traps together, l start
cd OF, with my new guide in the lead,
bound for somewhere in France" as
lar as L knew. We travelled over
more territory that afternoon than 1
thought was contained in the entire
Island. Never, it seemed, had | been
SO tired, and, to add to the discomfort,
1t was intensely hot. Eventually we
arrived at a suitable camp site after
nightfall and pitched our tents.
X x x x
BECAUSE of the intense heat, I
decided next morning to wait and
break camp an hour before sundown,
intending to travel at night instead of
by day. So l lounged around camp all
day, occasionally answering a call to
shoot crocodile that my shikaris
found snoozing on the large rocks at
the edge of the large pond (or tank,
as the natives called it, near our
camp. Early in the afternoon 1 was
aroused from my cot, where 1 had
gone to try to get a little nap before
breaking camp, by a native boy, who
was breathless and apparently much
excited by something he had seen.
All my servants gathered around
me gesticulating, and my personal
servant secured my .470 and urged me
to follow the excited boy. 1 was bit
doubtful whether I should go or not,
as 1t was in an entirely different di-
rection from that in which l was go
ing, and I needed the rest for my
night travelling. However I decided
to go and find out what was making
this boy so eager that I should follow
him. Naturally, 1 thought it was the
rogue elephant 1 had come to get, al
though it was in the wrong direction.
At any rate, 1 followed the boy,
breaking into the jungle at right
angle to the main road and following
the course of the tanks shores to
point directly opposite my camp. The
shores of this tank were pretty well
overgrown with bramble and jungle
bush, and there was. occasionally an
open beach where all kinds of jungle
folk spent their time wading and wal
lowing in the Shiny mud.
Eventually we arrived near the
open beach, but to get closer necessi-
tated maneuvering on our part and
crawling on our stomachs, which we
did for fully 800 yards. l cound un-
derstand by this time the reason for
the extra precaution the boy was TAX
ing. He was unwilling to take any
unnecessary risk of being seen by
whatever he was stalking. At no time