shoot with a bow?” I answered that the bow was one of my exercises in my youth. He gave me a bow and arrows, and taking me behind him on an elephant, carried me to a thick forest some leagues from the town. We penetrated a great way into the wood, and when he thought fit to stop, he bade me alight and, showing me a great tree, “Climb up that,” said he, “and shoot at the elephants as you see them pass by, for there are many of them in this forest, and if any of them fall, come and give me notice.” Having spoken thus, he left me victuals, and returned to the town, and I sat in the tree all night, seeing no elephants till break of day, when I perceived a great number. I shot several arrows among them; and at last one of the elephants fell. The rest retired immediately, leaving me at liberty to go and report my success. We went afterward together to the forest, where we dug a hole for the elephant; my patron meaning to return when it was rotten, and take the tusks to trade with.
I continued this work for two months. One morning, as I looked for the elephants, I perceived with extreme amazement that, instead of passing by as usual, they stopped, and came toward me with a horrible noise, in such numbers that the ground shook under them. They surrounded the tree in which I was concealed, with their trunks uplifted, and all fixed their eyes upon me. At this alarming spectacle I was so much terrified, that my bow and arrows fell out of my hand.
My fear was not without cause; for after the elephants had
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