er in their inquiries about "the
doings of the dreadful wild-beasts of foreign countries."

But I must mention, that our old friend Jolly boasted of other
accomplishments more extraordinary than story-telling, such as the art
of foretelling future events, of understanding the language of birds
and beasts, and he sometimes hinted, that he had the dangerous power of
killing an enemy who might be five hundred leagues distant, by the
performance of certain magical ceremonies. Perhaps you are not disposed
to believe that Jolly was such a clever old fellow. Well, I cannot help
it. I have no time now to endeavour to convince you, but here is his
story, though not in his own words, for if I had not corrected his bad
English, the narrative would be almost unintelligible to those who were
not accustomed to his extraordinary mixture of languages.

* * * * *

(JOLLY _begins his Story_.)

Tell you about the elephants again? Why, I have given you a dozen
stories at least about them this voyage! Well, if you must have it,
here goes.

You must know, then, that about two years before, (like a great fool
that I was,) I left my dear native island: I accompanied my father, and
twenty or thirty of our tribe, on an elephant-catching expedition, to
the banks of a large river more than fifty miles from our village. We
were five days on our journey, for we had to pass through deep and
tangled forests. As our object was merely to procure the valuable
tusks, which we bartered at the Dutch settlement, for linen cloth, and
other European articles, we did not attempt to take our game alive, but
contented ourselves with digging deep pit-falls in the forest-paths
made by the elephants in their visits to the river-side; for you must
know that elephants are very fond of bathing and splashing about in the
water. These pits of ours were slightly covered over with branches of
trees and grass, and at the bottom we fixed a strong, sharp-pointed
stake, on which, when they tumbled down headlong, the unwieldy animals
were impaled and killed. We always took care to bait our traps with
green boughs and tempting fruits. When we were so fortunate as to
entrap an elephant in this manner, some of our party would descend to
cut out the valuable tusks with a hatchet; and as we were quite unable
to raise the immense carcass out of the pit, we were obliged to fill it
up and dig another.

This method of catching elephants wa