with the mud, jetting it over their huge
backs. But how to get at them ? My friend
was on that side; so off I set, in hopes of
catching him before he began his attack.
By dint of great exertion, I got round just
as he was starting for the onslaught; but
still we were too far off to do any good by
shooting at them, so down we went on our
hands and knees, to crawl nearer to our
unsuspecting foes. All went well at first. By
the moonlight their backs— now covered with
white mud— looked strangely ghost-like, and
they loomed twice their natural size in the
hazy atmosphere. We were now within twenty
paces of them, and I was still crawling on,
when a scuffle behind me suddenly drew away
my attention— my friend's gun-bearer had got
frightened; and, judging that we were already
near enough, was trying to make off with the
gun; unfortunately, as he turned, he was
caught by the heel, and in the struggle the
gun was discharged. I saw it was of little
use firing, as the startled elephants were
already on the move; but taking aim at the
nearest, an old one, with her punchi, had the
luck to bring her down on her knees. Delusive
hope! she quickly rose again; and in
an instant, the far-off crashing of the jungle
was all that told us of the reality of our
late encounter. Anathematising heartily our
cowardly follower, we returned to the olies,
and sought comfort in the sleep from which
we had been so fruitlessly aroused. The
growling of the bears fighting for the yellow
fruit under the iron trees, mixed with the
mournful belling of the bucks, was our
melodious lullaby.

It must have been some hours afterwards
that I was again aroused by my watchful
companion, who pointed out two splendid
elks, a doe and a buck, within sixty paces of
my lair. To indemnify me for my last failure,
these both fell before my fowling-piece, which
is second to none for smooth bore ball-practice;
so I returned about three, A.M., to the
tent to rest, as we were to begin another
day's work with a thirteen miles' march to
Tanicolam.

Thus passed seven days, during which we
visited Coolvellan, Tanekai, and several other
tamil villages, shooting spotted deer, wild
boar, bears, chetas, and elks at night, and
deer, hares, peacocks, alligators, and jungle-
fowl by day; sometimes bivouacking under
the spreading shade of a tamarind tree,
sometimes by the side of a lonely tank among
the lemon grass and reeds, which thickly
ornament its thorny margin. The eighth
morning saw us journeying homewards,
regretting the shortness of our leave, but
consoling ourselves with the thought, that when
duty calls we must obey. We had travelled
fifty miles south of Jaffna, into solitudes
where white faces had, perhaps, never before
been seen—our bag was respectably filled:
eighteen spotted skins bore testimony to our
skill; and what with alligators and boars'
heads, surmounted by peacocks' tails, our
party made a brilliant re-entrance into the
Northern capital.

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER VI.

WILLIAM THE RED, in breathless haste
secured the three great forts of Dover,
Pevensey, and Hastings, and made with hot
speed for Winchester, where the Royal treasure
was kept. The treasurer delivering him
the keys, he found that it amounted to sixty
thousand pounds in silver, besides gold and
jewels. Possessed of this wealth, he soon
persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to
crown him, and became William the Second,
King of England.

Rufus was no sooner on the throne, than
he ordered into prison again the unhappy
state captives whom his father had set free;
and directed a goldsmith to ornament his
father's tomb profusely with gold and silver.
It would have been more dutiful in him to
have attended the sick Conqueror when he
was dying; but England itself, like this Red
King who once governed it, has sometimes
made expensive tombs for dead men whom it
treated shabbily when they were alive.

The King's brother, Robert of Normandy,
seeming quite content to be only Duke of that
country, and the King's other brother, Fine-
Scholar, being quiet enough with his five
thousand pounds in a chest, the King flattered
himself, we may suppose, with the hope of an
easy reign. But easy reigns were difficult to
have in those days. The turbulent bishop
ODO (who had blessed the Norman army at
the Battle of Hastings, and who, I dare say,
took all the credit of the victory to himself)
soon began, in concert with some powerful
Norman nobles, to trouble the Red King.

The truth seems to be that this bishop and
his friends, who had lands in England and
lands in Normandy, wished to hold both under
one Sovereign, and greatly preferred a thoughtless
good-natured person, such as Robert was,
to Rufus; who, though far from being an
amiable man in any respect, was keen, and
not to be imposed upon. They declared in
Robert's favor, and retired to their castles
(those castles were very troublesome to
Kings) in a sullen humour. The Red King,
seeing the Normans thus falling from him,
revenged himself upon them by appealing to
the English; to whom he made a variety of
promises, which he never meant to perform—
in particular, promises to soften the cruelty
of the Forest Laws— and who, in return, so
aided him with their valour, that Odo was
besieged in the Castle of Rochester, forced to
abandon it, and to depart from England for
ever; whereon the other rebellious Norman
nobles were soon reduced and scattered.

Then, the Red King went over to
Normandy, where the people suffered greatly
under the loose rule of Duke Robert. The