The impression of the tusks in soft soil gives a good idea of their size. A groove that will admit five fingers means that the tusks will probably weigh over 60 lbs. the pair. Twice round the forefoot gives the height of the elephant at the shoulder.
In shooting single elephants, after the first rush of a hundred yards or so all noise often ceases, as the elephant breaks into a walk, and a novice would suppose that he had stopped when in reality he is rapidly retreating.
In following wounded elephants it is a good plan to send a couple of trackers ahead while the sportsman and his gun-carriers follow a hundred yards in rear, as the trackers, if alone, are not likely to be taken by surprise. Rogue elephants, though more liable to attack in the first place, are not more determined than others; a female with a young calf is much more likely to charge persistently, and the advantage of having only one animal to deal with is immense.
The wild elephant’s attack is one of the noblest sights of the chase. A grander animated object than a wild elephant in full charge can hardly be imagined; the cocked ears and broad forehead present an immense frontage; the head is held high, with the trunk curled between the tusks to be uncoiled in the moment of attack; the massive forelegs come down with the force and regularity of ponderous machinery, and the whole figure is rapidly foreshortened, and appears to double in size with each advancing stride. The trunk being curled and unable to emit any sound, the attack is made in silence, after the usual premonitory shriek, which adds to its impressiveness. A tiger’s charge is an undignified display of arms, legs, and spluttering; the bison rushes blunderingly upon his foe; the bear’s attack is despicable; but the wild elephant’s onslaught is as dignified as it seems overwhelming; and a large tusker’s charge, when he has had sufficient distance to get into full swing, can only be compared to the steady and rapid advance of an engine on a line of rail. With all this, the sportsman who understands his game knows that there is a natural timidity in the elephant which often plays him tricks at the last moment. It is not difficult to turn or stop him with heavy metal, and if knocked down, he never, I believe, renews the attack.
Thus Sanderson writes, and in conventional phraseology that is all very fine; but Sanderson seems to have let his feelings run away with him. I confess that a tiger charging never appeared undignified to me; his charge has always struck me as being a particularly neat, business-like performance, and the coughing roar that accompanied it did not at all detract from the show—spluttering indeed! Sanderson’s elephant does not roar because he is afraid of hurting his trunk. Then the poor bison a blunderer! The way an old bull will charge, dodge behind a bush till he sees someone following him or hears someone speak, and then charge back again, shows an amount of systematic ‘cussedness’ which deserves praise not ridicule. As for the bear, his best friends must admit that his natural grotesqueness is only enhanced by his efforts at retaliation; but he does his best.
With a single exception, all those elephants which Sanderson shot behind the shoulder seem to have given him a long chase before he could bring them to bay, probably because the position of the heart is much harder to judge in the Indian than in the African species, the centre of the outside edge of the latter’s ear when thrown back marking the spot. It is not so with the Indian elephant, whose ear is smaller.
A fight between two wild tuskers is said frequently to last for a day or more, a round being fought every now and then. The more powerful elephant occasionally keeps his foe in view till he perhaps kills him.
Though elephant catching is of old date, shooting wild elephants seems to have been unheard of at the beginning of the century. Williamson, who wrote about the year 1805, remarks with reference to M. Vaillant’s exploits in South Africa:
Without disparagement to M. Vaillant’s veracity, I should think I might with great safety venture a wager that no native of Bengal, nor any European resident there, would undertake such a piece of rashness as to go out shooting wild elephants; and that, in the event of anyone possessing such temerity, the sportsman would come off second best. M. Vaillant performed his miracles in a wilderness, without anyone to record his achievements; consequently he was obliged to be his own historian. Persons under such circumstances are in possession of one great advantage: namely, that of relating not only the facts as they would appear to any common observer, but of describing the wondrous coolness and presence of mind which pervades them throughout the perils of the enterprise.
Sanderson says the largest elephant he has seen measured 9 ft. 10 ins. at the shoulder, and declares there is not a 10-ft. elephant in India. Colonel Kinloch measured one he shot 10 ft. 1 in., and the writer has seen a foot in Mr. Rowland Ward’s shop that measured 5 ft. in circumference, which should make the animal 10 ft. at the shoulder.