Elephants
I
ELEPHANTS are found nearly everywhere in Indo-China except in Tonking. They are similar to the Indian elephants, and although they have been divided into several subspecies, on very slender ground, they all belong to the same race: Elephas maximus.
Not so tall as their African cousins, but very nearly as big, they differ from the latter by a good number of points. Their ears are much smaller and differently shaped. Their trunk is absolutely flexible and not made of numerous segments, but rather like a big rubber tube with only one fingerlike process at the tip. Their back is convex from the shoulders to the root of the tail and their forehead is slightly concave. Also the brain capacity is larger than in the African species, thus making the head shot far more deadly. An Asiatic elephant charging is easily stopped with a bullet in the forehead. To my mind, the elephant deserves the name of King of Beasts more than does the lion or the tiger. He fears only man, and that not always. He is the unchallenged master of the jungle and, confident in his enormous strength, leads among its denizens a peaceful existence, fearing none and attacking none.
As a rule the elephants spend the day in the shade of the thick jungle, coming out in the evening to feed in the clearings of tall grass and sometimes in the native plantations. In the morning they walk slowly back to the jungle and keep going until about ten o’clock, when they stop and rest. Some of them may lie down, mostly the young ones, but the old ones doze standing on their big pillars or leaning against a tree, lazily flapping their ears. After a few hours’ rest they walk about, breaking a branch here, digging up a root there, or picking some fruits they are fond of, then rest again, and toward the end of the afternoon stroll slowly back to the clearing. In dull weather they may stay out in the open all day, and even in the dry season I have occasionally seen small herds standing still in the middle of the Lagna plains at the hottest time of the day. Now and then they would go down to a pool, throw water over their backs, then come out and stand still again under the broiling sun.
The small herds include only females and young animals, usually from five or six to twelve or fifteen individuals. Bigger herds may have one or two bulls nearly full grown, while very large herds, a hundred or more, are sure to contain a few big bulls with good tusks. Old bulls are solitary and are found sometimes at a great distance from any herd. Two of these patriarchs may go about together.
Very large herds are seldom found. They usually are just a temporary collecting of small troops and they break up again after a few days.
I once saw a great gathering of elephants. They were moving in a big front line nearly a mile wide. I counted one hundred and twenty different trails, and most of them had been made by several elephants walking in Indian file. I cannot estimate the exact number of animals, but that herd numbered certainly more than two hundred. However, the next day they had broken up into small bands and scattered in every direction.
The most common herds met with number between thirty and fifty animals. And even these are separated into small family groups, walking in the same direction, some distance apart. In case of alarm, they all gather together to escape.
Of all big game the elephant is the easiest to approach if the wind is right. His sense of smell is extremely keen, while his sight is rather poor. His sense of hearing is fairly good, but as a rule a herd makes so much noise that he does not pay any attention to the slight sound the hunter may make. On the other hand, a solitary elephant, if not feeding, will hear the sportsman if the latter is not very careful. In the open, an elephant seems to be able to detect a moving man up to about three hundred yards. Beyond that distance he does not pay any attention to moving objects.
Even after scenting man, the elephant does not always run away. He will stand still with his trunk aloft, very often letting out a low rumbling noise at the same time. The hunter must then stay perfectly motionless and wait. If the animal does not catch any more tainted air, he will regain confidence and start feeding again. If, on the contrary, he gets the scent a second time, he will run away with a scream or a roar, taking all the others with him.
With a few precautions one can easily approach him at a very close range. In the forest the hunter must approach with circumspection, not forgetting to look right and left. Although a large animal, an elephant is hard to see in thick jungle. Of course, when getting close to a herd, one hears, here and there, animals betraying their presence by the breaking of branches, the never-ceasing flapping of the ears, and the intestinal rumblings; but there are also some elephants standing motionless, resting or dozing, and one becomes aware of their presence when only a few paces away. Once I was following a herd in very thick stuff. I could hear the animals at about fifty yards ahead of me, but could hardly see one yard in front. I had to crawl through the soft vegetation, brushing it aside with my hands, and this was only possible where the elephants had already passed. Suddenly I heard a slight noise very close and, looking up, caught sight of a black object waving to and fro about two feet from my face. It was the tail of an elephant who had stayed behind the others and was standing quite still. I stepped back as carefully as I could and that elephant never suspected that a human being had walked within two feet of his rear end.
II
When I first left the army on pioneer leave I was put in charge of a small lumber camp in the An Loc territory. It was then a splendid big-game country. Elephants, sladangs, and bantings were very plentiful, and quite a few rhinoceroses were also to be found. Now the place has been given over to extensive rubber plantations, and the game is gone. But twenty-three years ago it was a true hunter’s paradise. I became very anxious to hunt the big beasts, and had plenty of opportunities; or rather, the opportunities were forced on me. My work took me through the jungle in search of valuable trees in every direction. Almost daily I crossed elephants’ trails and very often I heard the animals quite close. However, I had no rifle with which to tackle them, and I was forced to leave them alone and sometimes to make a detour to avoid running into them. Incidentally this going about in the jungle taught me to find my way under any condition as nothing else could have done. The thing to do was to get a proper rifle. I remember that once — I still shudder when I think of it — I followed a rhinoceros in thick jungle with a single-barrel sixteen-bore shotgun loaded with a round lead ball. Luckily I did not find the rhino.
At that time, elephant hunters in In do-China used an eight-bore rifle with an enormous charge of black powder and a heavy conical lead ball with a sharp steel point, but the price of such a gun was prohibitive for me at the time. Then I met a forest ranger who had killed several elephants with a magazine Winchester, using the .30 U. S. A. ammunition, and this fact gave me the idea of getting a French military rifle. I finally succeeded in securing one and I started on elephant and rhino shooting.
Of course I did not know much about tracking yet, but I had in my employ an Annamite who was a born tracker, a sort of human hound. He had never hunted game before, but he had been employed in the Cochin China rural police to track down cattle thieves, and when put after game he took to it like a duck to water. He had been dismissed from the police force for letting cattle lifters escape for a consideration, but all the same he was a splendid trailer and I learned much from him. The first time we went after elephants we did not find any fresh tracks, only twoor three-day-old ones. Nevertheless we followed those on the chance of finding a fresher trail crossing them. We did not see any and when night came we camped where we were. The next morning we went on and at about eight o’clock came on a much fresher trail. Apparently the elephants were moving very slowly, feeding as they went. Grass and branches were strewn everywhere, roots had been dug up and chewed, young trees had been stripped of their bark, and droppings were plentiful, a sure sign of slow moving.
At nine o’clock we heard them in front of us. They were feeding at the edge of a large clearing of tall grass. The wind being right, we crept up straight toward them. Right in front of me, about thirty yards away, some bushes were moving violently. Getting nearer, I saw through the intervening foliage a large bull elephant with gleaming tusks. He was pulling down a bunch of rattan vines. This was the first elephant I had ever seen in a wild state, although I had heard them often, and I was a bit excited. Instead of waiting to have a clear view of the animal, I fired at what I could see of his head and, to my disappointment and disgust, he wheeled round and was immediately engulfed in the tall grass. Then pandemonium broke loose in that clearing. The rest of the herd, roaring and trumpeting, rushed about this way and that in the ten-foot-tall reeds. I could not see anything, but just stood there tense and ready.
Finally the noise decreased as the huge beasts got to the opposite side of the clearing and out into the forest beyond. I thought they were all gone, when suddenly a big cow with a halfgrown calf came out of the grass, heading straight toward me. I shot her in the forehead and she went down dead in her tracks. The calf stopped by her side, screaming; another bullet through the head quieted it forever. This was my first elephant hunt and, although disappointed at not getting the bull, I was very well pleased. It also showed that my rifle was all right for elephants if the bullet was placed in the right spot.
It was about fifteen days later that I had my first exciting adventure with elephants. Early one morning I had started with my Annamite tracker and a coolie carrying food and water. We had not seen any fresh signs when, passing near a swamp, we heard some trumpeting not over two hundred yards away. We immediately went toward the spot, but the animals got our wind and ran off. As it was only seven in the morning we decided to follow them on the chance that they would stop sometime in the day, since I did not think they had been badly scared.
Outside the swamp, they had all come together and started in Indian file. They were going south and apparently at a quick walk. They did not stop anywhere to feed, but kept straight on through all kinds of ground, tall timber, thick, thorny jungle, reedy swamps where their big feet made nasty pitfalls hidden under the dark water, and, occasionally, small patches of bamboos or tall grass. Nothing can teach a man to know the jungle like elephant hunting. At about noon we crossed the railroad and then followed on through very much the same kind of country. It seemed that they would never stop and I was for giving up, as we were walking certainly much more slowly than the elephants were. But the tracker seemed confident. At about three in the afternoon we came to a spot where they had stopped to feed, and the abundance of signs, torn grass, broken branches, dug-up roots, showed that they had stayed there quite a while. They had then moved on slowly, feeding as they went, and the droppings were still warm. The forest was not thick, and we hoped to get a good chance of a clear shot. But we were to be disappointed, as the animals got into a great patch of nasty interlaced thorns many acres in extent. These thorns are called by the natives ‘cat claws,’ and it is a good name for them. Although not quite so bad as the wait-a-bit thorns, they are so leafy and so twisted together that a man can move only where an elephant has broken a trail, and even there is unable to see five yards ahead.
After all our day’s work we did not want to give up when apparently within reach of our quarry, and we followed on through one of the worst kinds of bush to be found in IndoChina. The elephants had been feeding on the soft tips of the thorns, and their trails crisscrossed in every direction. Now and then we would hear some of them in front of us, at other times on our right, then on our left, but we had to stick to the tracks, as any other way of approach was impossible. We had been for about half an hour in that thick stuff when suddenly there was a great commotion ahead of us, and a mass of huge gray beasts, seen only dimly through the foliage, came running back over the trail we were on. I tried to get out of the way by jumping to the right; but the bush was too thick and I fell on my back. I had my finger on the trigger, and as I fell my gun went off. At the sound of the shot the elephants turned back and crashed away, except the big cow that had been in front. This one was standing right over me and her left hind foot was on my right foot. She seemed absolutely nonplused, her trunk hanging down, her ears spread, quite motionless. Lying on my back, I fired eight shots into her belly. It was lucky that I was using a short rifle that day. As it was, the muzzle of the gun was so close to the body of the animal that there was a circle of skin burned by the powder one inch in diameter round every bullet hole. My Annamite tracker had jumped to the left and I could see him kneeling and firing with my Savage .303 at the elephant’s head. I shouted to him: ‘Don’t fire at her head! She’ll fall on me!’ Finally the elephant slowly turned round to her right, and in doing so freed my foot. I jumped up and, as she was going off, fired a ninth shot behind her ear, and she went down for good.
I felt a great relief and breathed freely. Of course those elephants were not charging, merely stampeding, and the one that stood over me never seemed to realize the situation. But if the Annamite had killed her when he was firing at her head she would have crushed me with her fall. And when she at last turned to go, if she had turned to her left instead of to her right, she probably would have stepped on me. As it was, I escaped with only the upper part of my foot bruised and slightly skinned, thanks to my heavy military boots. All the same, it was an experience I do not wish to repeat.
We were standing over our victim when, not fifty yards away, an elephant roared. I thought at first that the rest of the herd was coming back, but as the roars kept on always at the same spot I crept toward the sound and found a small calf, not over three feet tall, yelling for all he was worth. The volume of noise these little fellows can make is astonishing. This one evidently belonged to the cow I had just killed, and, being left behind by the rest of the herd, was lost and letting the jungle know it. This youngster was too small to fare for himself and I shot him.
The next day I came back with a lot of men to cut up the elephants. On approaching the carcass of the cow, we found that some tigers had eaten her whole trunk. As for the calf, it had been completely devoured. What would have happened to me if I had been pinned down to the ground by the elephant’s fall!
III
The Mois have a number of superstitious beliefs about the elephants, as they have about other animals. They will seldom give any information to hunters, as they are afraid that the big beasts will take revenge on them by destroying their crops or pulling down their houses. But sometimes their patience is pushed a bit too far.
One day an old Moi came to my house to see me. His two rice fields had been ruined by elephants and he had come to ask my help, as they kept coming every night. For four days this had been going on. ‘Why did you not come before?’ I asked, and this is the explanation he gave me. The first day that the beasts came into his fields, he offered prayers and sacrificed a chicken to the forest gods, but the next night the elephants returned. Then he offered a goat and more prayers, but to no avail; the elephants still came. He then called the witch doctor to sacrifice a pig and offer prayers, supplemented with a gallon of rice alcohol. The witch doctor got gloriously drunk, so there is no doubt that the alcohol was good and the gods ought to have been pleased, but the elephants refused to listen to reason and came again a third night. So in desperation the old Moi went down to his ruined fields and, standing in the middle and facing the way they had departed through the jungle, solemnly notified them that he was going to get a white man with a gun and that he was not responsible for any mishap that might befall them. And that is how he came to visit me.
His house was about seven miles away from mine and, as it was already two in the afternoon, I immediately followed him there. His fields were not near his house, but in the jungle, about one mile farther. Toward evening he took me down there to have a look. The two fields were utterly ruined. What the elephants had not eaten they had trampled, and it was hard to realize that rice had ever grown in the place. Round the fields there were some banana trees, and most of these had been torn down and chewed. I had grave doubts about the elephants coming back again. There was nothing for them to come for. But that night, as I was lying in the Moi’s house, I heard them trumpeting.
Early next morning the old Moi and I were on our way. There were no fresh signs in the fields and we pushed on through a large bamboo belt. There we found fresh tracks. They led us to a muddy pool where the elephants had been wallowing. They had then started toward a small conical hill. We followed. The animals, forcing their way through the bushes, had left fresh mud on all the twigs and leaves and we were soon as muddy as they were. I had to be careful not to let any mud get into the mechanism of my rifle. At the foot of the hill the herd had separated into two bunches, one group going round the base, the other one going straight up. We decided to follow the latter. After one hour of hard climbing we finally reached the top. There we found a small crater, about fifty yards in diameter, surrounded by a steep wall of rocks twenty feet high. This wall was broken in two places, thus forming an entrance and an exit. Inside the crater were some tall trees and some small underbrush, not very thick. Four elephants were there, resting or lazily pulling at branches. The nearest one was shaking a small tree, apparently in fun, for he could have broken it easily. Climbing up on a rock, I killed him with a bullet in his ear. The other ones started running in a circle, trying to find a way out. A big female passed broadside near me and I fired twice in her shoulder, but she kept on, followed by the other ones, and went out through the exit at the other side of the crater.
After making sure that the first one shot was really dead, we followed the wounded one. We soon found blood, — a little at first, then a continuous stream, — and after a hundred yards or so I caught sight of her lying on her side, dead. As we were slowly approaching her there was a scream, and a young bull came out of the brush beyond the dead cow. I slipped behind a rock and the Moi went up a tree like a monkey. The bull had stopped near the carcass and was looking around. I shot him through the head and he went down, stone-dead. When he fell, one of his tusks pierced his trunk right through. The old Moi was well pleased — he had had his revenge. The next morning about a hundred savages, men, women, and children, followed by a host of yellow dogs, were on the spot to cut up the elephants, and they spent several days drying the meat. I took only the feet and the tusks.
Elephants seldom charge without provocation. Even when wounded they usually go off, and it is in the process of following up that the danger comes. When shooting in the open, after killing one or two, the hunter may be attacked by some other members of the herd. That is because they see him and realize what is happening. Also, a female with a young calf may charge if she thinks her offspring is in danger. Often, when stalking elephants, the hunter comes on some calves playing on the outskirts of the herd. If he is seen by one of them, the little fellow may get scared and scream. Then, of course, mamma will come at once to inquire and will attack the intruder if she can spot him. I have never heard of a rogue elephant in Indo-China.
One should never rush out after the shot. Not only may the animal be simply stunned, but some other elephant may see one and charge. A single shot does not scare the elephants badly, and often they mill around for a while or come to look at the fallen one. Several shots in the air may be needed to drive them off.
While hunting in the Gia-Huynh country, early one morning we caught sight of a herd of elephants passing on top of a grassy knoll in Indian file, nearly one mile away. The country is formed of rolling plains interspersed with small woods, and a large forest lies to the west of it. There were seventeen of the huge beasts, not counting the small calves, and the four last ones were bulls. They were moving toward the forest and we tried to head them off, but we were too late. I decided to follow them. It was hard tracking; the ground was very dry, covered with a thick layer of dead leaves, and it was not until one in the afternoon that we caught up with them. The underbrush was not thick and there were no thorns, so stalking was not difficult. I finally caught sight of one of the bulls and I managed to creep up to within thirty yards of him. I was getting ready to shoot when the Annamite tracker touched me on the back and whispered that he could see another bull to our left. Looking where he pointed, I could see an elephant partly hidden by some foliage, but could not distinguish any tusks. As he insisted that the animal was a male, I said, ‘All right; you shoot him at the same moment I shoot the one that is in front of me.’ We fired practically at the same time and both elephants dropped.
Excited at having killed an elephant all by himself, the tracker rushed toward his victim, shouting, ‘It is dead! It is dead!’ But suddenly the animal got on its feet. It was a female, and with a scream it charged the man. He turned and fled toward me with the infuriated cow close behind him, her trunk extended ready to grab him. I had stayed behind the tree from where I had killed my bull. Turning round, I immediately fired at the coming cow, who pitched forward, dead, with a bullet through her forehead. As she fell, the Annamite caught his foot in a creeper and fell at the same time, and there he lay with the elephant’s trunk across his legs. But except for a bad fright he was unhurt.
At night elephants, like many other animals, are much bolder than in the daytime. Very often, when they come in to feed on the crops, they refuse to be driven out by shouts, the beating of tom-toms, firing of firecrackers, and so forth. Curiously enough, one or two shots from a gun will make them move when firecrackers have little or no effect.
Only last year a herd of elephants came after dark into a rice field guarded by two Annamites, who were on a platform or machan. These two men yelled and beat on empty kerosene cans, but the animals did not pay the slightest attention to them. Finally, in desperation, one of the guardians picked a bunch of straw from the roof over the platform, tied it to a long pole, set fire to it, and started after the elephants. That made them move away. The Annamite was making his way back to the platform when an old cow that had not followed the herd, but had remained motionless in the field, caught him and trampled him to death. After killing him, she slowly followed the others into the jungle.
A man killed by an elephant is not a nice sight. The body is trampled out of all recognition, and the identity of the victim can be guessed at only by what remains of his clothes, or by his gun if he had one.
IV
I have already said that big bulls are solitary. But only very old ones are really so and never join any herd. The ordinary adult bulls usually feed by themselves, but join the cows occasionally. They may stay with the herds for a few days or just pass through.
I once killed an old bull which happened to die in a curious fashion. We had picked up his trail early one morning. After following for over two hours we ran upon a herd of cows standing in tall timber with no underbrush, so that they were easy to see. Although the bull’s tracks had led right up to the cows, he was nowhere in sight. We circled round at a distance and finally picked up his trail again, going away north. Leaving the cows behind, we followed him and, after a few hours more of walking, found him in a small stream, drinking. He was just turning to retrace his steps when I fired, aiming at his head. He rushed forward blindly; I fired again and he stopped, standing absolutely still; I shot three times more and yet he did not fall or make the slightest movement. It was like firing at a rock. I crept nearer and then understood what was the matter. His head was drooping and a stream of blood was flowing from his trunk; his eyes were shut. But his body was firmly wedged between two trees growing three or four feet apart. He was quite dead, but could not fall. In his blind rush he had catapulted between those trees without seeing them, just at the time my second bullet reached him. The three other shots had been quite useless.
When getting close to a herd of elephants, if it is too thick to see the animals plainly enough to pick a good one, it is sometimes advisable to circle and get ahead of them, take a stand in a better spot, and let them come up as they feed — always provided the wind is right.
It is prudent to hide behind a stout tree, because the elephants are apt to stampede right ahead after the first shot. Besides the risk of being run over, the stampede may degenerate into a real charge from one or two members of the herd if the hunter is seen or scented.
Three years ago I was camping in the rolling country north of Gia-Huynh with a Belgian sportsman. One morning at five o’clock we were having our breakfast when the silence of the jungle was broken by a loud trumpeting close by. Going to the tent door, we saw dimly in the early light of dawn about a dozen large gray shapes stalking majestically across the small plain in front of the camp. They were walking toward a small wood half a mile away. By the other side of that wood there was another clearing, at the end of which the real forest began. Evidently the elephants were going to spend the day there. Thinking that they might loiter a little while in the small wood before crossing the last open space, we started immediately and, circling quickly round, got beyond the small wood and took our stand near the edge of the forest behind a large solitary tree. We were hardly there when the elephants came out of the wood.
They were in two groups, walking very leisurely a few paces at a time, then stopping, balancing their trunks, flapping their ears against their necks, and moving a few paces more. The group to the left was composed of three full-grown cows and five or six halfgrown youngsters. I did not see any small calves. In the right group were two huge old cows and a young bull. They were all headed for our tree, suspecting nothing. The Belgian was watching out at the right side of the tree; I was at the left. When the elephants were at about eighty yards from us, the right group stopped, but the other ones came on quicker. I told my companion to shoot the bigger cow in the farther bunch and I prepared to take care of the nearer bunch in case of necessity. At the shot the old cow crumpled down, stone-dead. Then the nearer group came on straight toward us at a quick shuffle. With four shots I stopped the three large ones, and the rest swerved to the left and ran.
From his side of the tree the Belgian was firing away, I could not see at what. Getting behind him, I looked over his shoulder. Near the first cow he had shot, another one, nearly as large, was standing, ears spread, waving her trunk smartly from side to side. My companion stepped out of the shelter of the tree to get a better aim. The cow saw him and immediately charged full speed, her trunk held forward horizontally. ‘Run and hide in the bushes to your right!’ I yelled to the Belgian. I fired at the coming animal, but the bullet struck too low beneath the forehead and did not even check her advance. I had no cartridge left in my rifle, so I too ran, dodging at right angles, with the elephant not five yards away. But she was going so fast that she passed on and it was not until she had run straight on for thirty yards more that she began to turn ponderously in my direction. While running I had thrown a few cartridges in the magazine and now I turned to fire, but before I could press the trigger a rifle shot rang out from behind a bush near by and the elephant fell forward, dead. My companion had stopped her.
The three elephants I had shot were lying on their sides; the two killed by the Belgian were dead in a kneeling position. Often elephants and rhinos die that way, and it takes a lot of hard work to turn them over for the cutting-up process.
One month later very much the same experience happened to me, not one mile from that very spot. A herd of over fifty elephants had taken its quarters in the large forest already mentioned. Every night they would come out to feed in the open, and every morning they would go back to the shelter of the thick jungle. I had seen them once just as they were filing in one morning, but too far to shoot. Several of them were bulls with good ivory.
For four days I waited for them to come out in the evening or tried to head them off in the morning. But I was always too late. Finally, the fifth day, at five in the afternoon, I espied five of them just out of the jungle and feeding in a small clearing. Four of them were bulls, two large ones and two half-grown. Keeping within the edge of the jungle, I got between them and their line of retreat. I knew that as soon as I started firing they would face back to the forest and possibly pass right over the spot where I stood. But those bulls were very tempting, and I decided to take the risks.
The farthest one had the finest tusks. He was standing broadside at about a hundred yards, plucking some grass. Kneeling on a small ant hill, I fired at his ear; he lurched forward and nearly fell, but righted himself, and I had to fire another shot to kill him. The other ones immediately raced back straight toward me. I stopped two more bulls in succession, but the two remaining animals never swerved or slackened their pace, and they were now so close that I had to dodge. I ran across a small sandy glade and the elephants crashed into the jungle. I was in the act of reloading my rifle when the boy who was with me said, ‘Look out! One is coming.’ The only female of the bunch, instead of going on into the forest, had stopped, after seeing me run, and now she was coming at me full speed. But she had no chance; she was crossing that sandy place where no bushes were in the way, and when she was not more than ten yards from me I sent a bullet through her forehead which stopped her dead in her tracks. The last bull escaped.
Elephants in Indo-China have a curious habit which I have never heard reported by any other hunters from either India or Africa. They often come back to the spot where some of them have been killed and visit the dead ones. This may happen the next day, but more often a few days later. This visit is always made at night, and, as is shown by the numerous signs, such as tracks, grass trampled down, and the quantity of droppings, they stay a fairly long time. Very often a carcass will be moved for a few yards. After several days in the hot sun a dead elephant is not pleasant to look at and the stench is awful. Yet the elephants do not seem to be afraid to touch such a carrion.
The five animals shot by the Belgian and myself were visited for three nights in succession, and three of the carcasses were moved. The blinds we had built there to stalk tigers were torn to pieces.
In the dry season, when the supply of free water gives out, the elephants dig wells in the dry stream beds. There may be a few pools left along the course of the river, but the water there is generally blackish brown, full of dead leaves and twigs, and, although used by other animals, the elephants will not touch it. They will dig in the sand near by, and so obtain a good clear supply. They never use the same wells twice, but make new ones every night, and by the end of the dry season the river beds look like an endless succession of pitfalls.
The extermination of the elephants in Indo-China is not likely to occur for a very long time. The unsettled areas are enormous, and the natives do not molest the elephants. Moreover, their ivory, although of good quality, is very light compared with that obtainable in Africa. A pair of good tusks seldom reaches fifty pounds, and the females have none, or only small, valueless stumps. Consequently no man could make a living there as an ivory hunter. The elephants are shot for sport or for tiger baits, and that in a very limited number. Of course, when they grow so bold as to be a nuisance to the plantations or a danger to human life in a particular district, their destruction becomes a necessity. But they quickly learn their lesson and move out of a country where they are molested too much.
The big giants are secure for a great number of generations to come.