The elephants are now protected by game laws, although twenty years ago a reward was offered by the Government for their destruction.The 'Rifle and Hound' can no longer be accepted as a guidebook to the sports in Ceylon; the country is changed, and in many districts the forests have been cleared, and civilization has advanced into the domains of wild beasts.The colony has been blessed with prosperity, and the gradual decrease of game is a natural consequence of extended cultivation and increased population.
In the pages of this book it will be seen that I foretold the destruction of the wild deer and other animals twenty years ago.At that time the energetic Tamby's or Moormen were possessed of guns, and had commenced a deadly warfare in the jungles, killing the wild animals as a matter of business, and making a livelihood by the sale of dried flesh, hides, and buffalo-horns.This unremitting slaughter of the game during all seasons has been most disastrous, and at length necessitated the establishment of laws for its protection.
As the elephants have decreased in Ceylon, so in like manner their number must be reduced in Africa by the continual demand for ivory.
Since the 'Rifle and Hound' was written, I have had considerable experience with the African elephant.
This is a distinct species, as may be seen by a comparison with the Indian elephant in the Zoological Gardens of the Regent's Park.
In Africa, all elephants are provided with tusks; those of the females are small, averaging about twenty pounds the pair.The bull's are sometimes enormous.I have seen a pair of tusks that weighed 300 lbs., and I have met with single tusks of 160 lbs.During this year (1874) a tusk was sold in London that weighed 188 lbs.As the horns of deer vary in different localities, so the ivory is also larger and of superior quality in certain districts.This is the result of food and climate.
The average of bull elephant's tusks in equatorial Africa is about 90lbs.or 100 lbs.the pair.
It is not my intention to write a treatise upon the African elephant;this has been already described in the `Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,'( Published by Messrs.Macmillan and Co.) but it will be sufficient to explain that it is by no means an easy beast to kill when in the act of charging.From the peculiar formation of the head, it is almost impossible to kill a bull elephant by the forehead shot; thus the danger of hunting the African variety is enhanced tenfold.
The habits of the African elephant are very different from those of his Indian cousins.Instead of retiring to dense jungles at sunrise, the African will be met with in the mid-day glare far away from forests, basking in the hot prairie grass of ten feet high, which scarcely reaches to his withers.
Success in elephant shooting depends materially upon the character of the ground.In good forests, where a close approach is easy, the African species can be killed like the Indian, by one shot either behind the ear or in the temple; but in open ground, or in high grass, it is both uncertain and extremely dangerous to attempt a close approach on foot.
Should the animal turn upon the hunter, it is next to impossible to take the forehead-shot with effect.It is therefore customary in Africa, to fire at the shoulder with a very heavy rifle at a distance of fifty or sixty yards.In Ceylon it was generally believed that the shoulder-shot was useless; thus we have distinct methods of shooting the two species of elephants: this is caused, not only by the difference between the animals, but chiefly by the contrast in the countries they inhabit.
Ceylon is a jungle; thus an elephant can be approached within a few paces, which admit of accurate aim at the brain.In Africa the elephant is frequently upon open ground; therefore he is shot in the larger mark (the shoulder) at a greater distance.I have shot them successfully both in the brain and in the shoulder, and where the character of the country admits an approach to within ten paces, I prefer the Ceylon method of aiming either at the temple or behind the ear.
Although the African elephant with his magnificent tusks is a higher type than that of Ceylon, I look back to the hunting of my younger days with unmixed pleasure.Friends with whom I enjoyed those sports are still alive, and are true friends always, thus exemplifying that peculiar freemasonry which unites the hearts of sportsmen.
