Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/548

482 jungles of the Aney-Maley, or Elephant Mountains. These forests yield to the government large supplies of teak-wood, invaluable for house and ship-building, and furnish a hunting-ground for adventurous sportsmen. All kinds of game, from the buffalo and wild boar, the leopard and tiger, up to the greatest of all, the wild elephant, (who give the mountains their name,) here abound. The chase is attended with danger, and not unfrequently with loss of life. While in Coimbatoor, we heard of the escape of a civilian high in rank from a situation of fearful peril. In company with a party, he had succeeded in coming upon a wild elephant. They fired, but the elephant, though wounded, was not struck in a mortal part. Infuriated by his wounds, he charged upon the assailants, seized this gentleman with his trunk, dashed him to the ground, ran upon him, and kneeling down, thrust at him with his tusks, burying them deep in the ground; then rising, he threw the body from him. The companions of the unfortunate officer had now come up, and seized the opportunity to send a rifle-ball into his brain. The monster fell dead; the gentleman was found, not run through as was supposed, but only stunned. The tusks had passed one