Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1898 — An Elephant Had Fun with Him. [ARTICLE]

An Elephant Had Fun with Him.

A young traveler and sportsman who has just returned from a hunting and exploring trip through Africa has lived to tell how It feels to play football with an enraged elephant for the center rush on one side and yourself as the whole team and the football on the other. “Round Lake Stephanie,” he writes, “we had some excellent sport, and it was here that I was hurt by a wounded elephant. My escape was nothing less than miraculous. The great beast, mad with rage, was charging me when at the critical moment my gun failed, and I had to turn and run. But the elephant soon caught me, and going on his knees tried to pin me to the ground with his tusks. Failing in this he caught me with his trunk and flung me round under his body, with the idea of crushing me to death. How I escaped-1 do not know, as I was in this situation for half an hour. At the end of that time the great brute got up and kicking a piece of wood which he doubtless took to be my dead body, made off to his retreat. Curiously enough, I had no bones broken.”