C. G. Schillings, phot.
PREPARING TO SKIN AN ELEPHANT.
An experience I had in the Berlin Zoological Gardens illustrates this. I was called in to dispatch a huge bull-elephant which had to be killed, and which had rejected all the forms of poison that had been administered to it. In order to give it a quick and painless end I selected a newly invented elephant-rifle, calibre 10·75, loaded with 4 gr. of smokeless powder and a steel-capped bullet. On reflection the steel cap seemed to me too dangerous in the circumstances, so I had it filed off. I shall allow Professor Schmalz to describe what now happened: “The first shot entered the skin between the second and third ribs, and then simply went into splinters. It did no serious damage to the interior organs, and a stag thus wounded would merely take madly to flight. A piece of the cap reached the lung, but only a single splinter had penetrated, causing a slight flow of blood. The second shot was excellently placed, namely just below the root of the lung. It lacerated both the lung arteries and both the bronchial, and thus caused instant death.”
The fact that, with such a charge, a bullet fired at a distance of less than four yards should have gone into splinters in this way says more than one could in a long disquisition, and serves to explain the secret of many a mishap in the African wilderness.[4]
A MISSIONARY’S DWELLING NEAR KILIMANJARO IN WHICH I STAYED SEVERAL TIMES AS GUEST.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
HEAD OF A BULL-ELEPHANT KILLED BY THE AUTHOR. NOW IN THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, BERLIN.]