of the sport is, accordingly, much increased, as it is
next to impossible to kill the elephant when in full
charge, and the only hope of safety consists in turning
him by a continuous fire with heavy guns; this cannot
always be effected.
I had a powerful pair of No. 10 polygroove rifles,
made by Reilly of Oxford Street; they weighed fifteen
pounds, and carried seven drachms of powder without
a disagreeable recoil. The bullet was a blunt cone,
on*e and a half diameter of the bore, and I. used a
mixture of nine-tenths lead and one-tenth quicksilver
for the hardening of the projectile. This is superior
to all mixtures for that purpose, as it combines hardness
with extra weight; the lead must be melted in a
pot by itself to a red heat, and the proportion of
quicksilver must be added a ladle-full at a time,
and stirred quickly with a piece of iron just in
sufficient quantity to make three or four bullets.1 If
the quicksilver is subjected to a red heat in the large
lead pot, it will evaporate. The only successful forehead
shot that I made at an African elephant, was
shortly after my arrival in the Abyssinian territory on
the Settite rive r; this was in thick thorny jungle, and
an elephant from the herd charged with such good
intention, that had she not been stopped, she must
have caught one of the party. When within about
five yards of the muzzle, I killed her dead by a forehead
shot with a hardened bullet as described, from a
Reilly No. 10 rifle, and we subsequently recovered the
bullet in the vertebra; o f the neck!
This extraordinary penetration led me to suppose
that I should always succeed as I had done in Ceylon*
and I have frequently stood the charge of an African
elephant until close upon me, determined to give the
forehead shot a fair trial, but I have always failed,
except in the instance now mentioned ; it must also be
borne in mind that the elephant was a female, with a
head far inferior in size and solidity to that of the
male.
The temple shot, and that behind the ear, are equally
fatal in Africa as in Ceylon, provided the hunter can
approach within ten or twelve yards; but altogether
the hunting is far more difficult, as the character of the
country does not admit of an approach sufficiently close
to guarantee a successful shot. In the forests of Ceylon
an elephant can be stalked to within a few paces, and
the shot is seldom fired at a greater distance than ten
yards : thus accuracy of aim is insured; but in the
open ground of Africa, an elephant can seldom be
approached within fifty yards, and should he charge
the hunter, escape is most difficult. I never found
African elephants in good jungle, except once, and on