The day following was a most propitious one for sport, the air clear and bracing, and the sun, as is the case in this latitude and season, possessed of little power. Breakfast over, the judge ordered his gun to be laid on the table, and at the same time asked me how I was provided in that way. I told him I was possessed of a gun, but I dared say he would not deem it a first-rate piece of ordnance. “Allow me to look at it,” said he; “I’ll send a man to your tent for it;” and with this he despatched a servant to my routee. The judge clicked my locks, turned the piece about, took a peep at the muzzles, which were in rather fine order for cutting wadding, in the absence of the instrument usually employed for that purpose, shook his head, and returned it to me. “Come,” said he, “I think we can set you up with a better piece than that for the day; though,” added he, archly, “it appears to have seen a little service too;” and so saying, he put together a splendid Joe Manton, the locks of which spoke eloquently as he played them off, and he placed it in my hands. “Have you ever shot off an elephant?” “Never, sir,” said I, “though I have ridden upon one more than once.” “Well, then, you must make your first essay to-day; it is no easy matter; you must allow for the rise and fall of the animal, and take care you don’t bag any of the black fellows alongside of you.” I laughingly assured him I would endeavour to avoid that mistake. “Come along, then,” said he; “I think we are now ready.” The judge had two noble shekarrie, or hunting elephants, trained to face the tiger, and for sport in general, which stood ready caparisoned, with their flaming red _jhools_, or housings, in front of the tent. In the howdah of one of them I took my seat, whilst the judge occupied that of the other. Duly seated, guns secured, brandy and lunch stowed away in the _khowas_ or dicky, the stately brutes rose at the command of the drivers from their recumbent postures; the orderly Cossack-looking horsemen mounted; the troop of beaters shouldered their long laties or poles, and we were instantly bearing away in full swing for the sporting-ground. This lay at the distance of three or four miles from our encampment, and consisted of a long shallow jheel or lake, skirted by tracks of rank grass, terminating in cultivation, villages, and groves of trees. The elephant moves both legs at one side simultaneously, consequently the body rises and falls, and his motion is that of a ship at sea, and I felt before I tried it that I should make nothing of my first attempt to shoot off one. We now formed line, the judge’s elephant at one extremity, or pretty nearly so, and mine at the other, and advanced. “Keep a good look-out, Gernon,” cried my host; “we shall have something up immediately.”