at right angles with our wall (the
fools! they thought they should expose themselves too much by taking a
position parallel to it); the cavalry halted too, and--after the deuce's
own flourish of trumpets and banging of gongs, to be sure,--somebody, in
a flame-colored satin-dress, with an immense jewel blazing in his pugree
(that looked through my telescope like a small but very bright planet),
got up from the back of one of the very biggest elephants, and began a
speech.

The elephants were, as I said, in a line formed with admirable
precision, about three hundred of them. The following little diagram
will explain matters:--

__G
|
.................... |
E |
|
|
| F

E is the line of elephants. F is the wall of the fort. G a gun in the
fort. NOW the reader will see what I did.

The elephants were standing, their trunks waggling to and fro gracefully
before them; and I, with superhuman skill and activity, brought the gun
G (a devilish long brass gun) to bear upon them. I pointed it myself;
bang! it went, and what was the consequence? Why, this:--

X
____________________ |__G
.................... |
E |
|
|
| F

F is the fort, as before. G is the gun, as before. E, the elephants, as
we have previously seen them. What then is X? X IS THE LINE TAKEN BY THE
BALL FIRED FROM G, which took off ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOUR elephants'
trunks, and only spent itself in the tusk of a very old animal, that
stood the hundred and thirty-fifth.

I say that such a shot was never fired before or since; that a gun
was never pointed in such a way. Suppose I had been a common man, and
contented myself with firing bang at the head of the first animal? An
ass would have done it, prided himself had he hit his mark, and what
would have been the consequence? Why, that the ball might have killed
two elephants and wounded a third; but here, probably, it would have
stopped, and done no further mischief. The TRUNK was the place at which
to aim; there are no bones there; and away, consequently, went t