The Rifle and Hound in Ceylong | Page 5

extraordinary precision, the hollow bullet caused
the frequent loss of a wounded animal. Mr. Holland is now
experimenting in the conversion of a Whitworth-barrel to a
breech-loader. If this should prove successful, I should prefer the
Whitworth projectile to any other for a sporting rifle in wild countries,

as it would combine accuracy at both long and short ranges with
extreme penetration.
The long interval that has elapsed since I was in Ceylon, has caused a
great diminution in the wild animals.
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 90 lbs. 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