The letter. This missive from son to mother. Burma is now (somewhat) Myanmar, and we no longer shoot at elephants (mostly).
Within the Upper Burma region known as the 'Triangle,' the post-WWI Colonial government of rule was slowly, and very quietly dealing with the remaining vestiges of slavery and human sacrifice. For the good of societal norms (League of Nations, et al). Under this veil of secrecy, the northern hill tribes were tacitly allowed to continue their animist need to placate mystic spirits (nat) through sacrifice to ensure bounty for the collective.
There, it be said - they were barbaric. Perhaps; and just maybe it was the 1920's and a spiritual authority of the long before instilled in his people the eventual thought he felt was needed to ensure the prosperity of his flock's paddy and yam. One starts small on the what works gift ladder to heaven, until, eventually ... monkey, human.
Find a spot for a smoke. Exhale, or not, then take a moment to walk out under the stars and imagine yourself devoid of Western thought; explain the for why of lightning, flood, or death to your very first visitor without terms reasoned from a textbook. Try your darnedest to make this Eve or Adam a dinner with your bare hands and have backup when there be nothing but the fire and empty stomach.
Now, re-insert yourself back into Western Civilization, with a solid education, and memory of fight in a most idiotic and bloody global war. Don't forget the possibility of almost shooting your subordinates for desertion ... save only the realization their flight from the trench was not for lack of patriotism, but rats underfoot. Pshaw. Leave that mess and bump around the South Pacific for awhile before taking a job in a jungle - here's your pen because you are now a manager with a desk at a sugar plantation. Smoke a pipe and tack a foreign word of the day to the mirror of your daily shave.
Ten years later, you pick up a gun and shoot an elephant. Why?
At a certain point, you retire and assume a tie, pose for a picture with your daughter. The first of many grandchildren is quite happy to lounge inside the hollowed-out shell that once helped animate flesh and bone through a jangled jungle of bamboo and fern to the tune of one wayward bit of right-sided ivory taking control of the brain animal.
Camp Seragataung, Namti Valley
Wednesday, 21st Novr., 1928
My Dearest Mother,
I’ve really got a lot to talk to you about if I can only do it & I’m going to start off by telling you of something which I have accomplished & to be quite frank has raised me quite a number of pegs in my own estimation. That is, I have shot & killed a notoriously dangerous wild rogue elephant which I tracked & had charge me. You knew of course that I was coming up here to try to shoot something but I didn’t like to tell you that I had determined to try for an elephant first of all, as that is an animal one cannot sit up on a tree & pot at in comfort but must follow up & shoot standing when the opportunity arrives & therefore I thought it would provide a fair test as to whether I had deteriorated seriously as the result of nearly 10 years pen pushing.
I arrived at Namkham village on Thursday evening & called the Headman (*editor's note: tantamount to "chief") to tell him I wanted to shoot one elephant & would he please send out to find out where elephants were & lead me to them. On Friday morning he came along with another Kachin to say five elephants had crossed a track near the village during the night. I therefore got out the .432 Mauser magazine rifle I borrowed from Blaquière of the Frontier Service, fired five rounds by way of experiment, gave my own rifle to my Burman shikari (*editor's note: "guide" for the hunt), it is a .35 Mannlicher-Schoenauer, & off we went.
We went along the trail from the village about a mile until we came to where the tracks of the elephants were & then we broke off into the jungle to follow along them. Considering the size of an elephant, one would expect it to make a broad swath through the jungle along which a mere man could follow quite easily, but that is not so at all & I never fail to wonder at the little disturbance it does make.
The two Kachins went in front of me & they had to use their dahs continually to cut a path for us. We followed these elephants through all types of dense jungle, tall grass in which one couldn’t see three yards & in which I prayed the elephants were not resting, then again through big tree jungle where it is never really daylight & the trees are festooned with fantastic creepers. One can see it is brilliant sunshine on the tops of the trees, but down below the light is of a dim religious order accentuated by occasional beams which pierce the upper surface. The undergrowth in this manner of jungle consists of beautiful ferns mixed up with a most abominable type of dwarf palm which is covered with small hooks & large pricks which hold onto one’s clothing in a most remarkable fashion & the only way to get through them is with a dah. We followed these elephants for three or four hours & I was very interested to see how clever the Kachins were at reading the signs on the ground, which were unintelligible to me. Frequently the elephants had strolled about to eat bamboo shoots & branches of trees & I should have been hopelessly confused by the numbers of tracks but not so the Kachins, who were never in doubt as to which to choose. We never saw the animals, however, as they went across the Namti river into the Pidaung game sanctuary before we came up with them. We therefore made for camp again & on the way I shot a sambhur which provided some very welcome meat.
On Saturday morning the same two Kachins came again with news that a single elephant had crossed a path not far from the village during the night, so off we set again. We soon got to this track & it took us at once into the most horrid jungle I think I have ever been in, consisting of a thick sort of bamboo grass mixed with proper bamboos, dwarf palms & young trees. Even following in the tracks of the elephant & with Kachins doing a certain amount of cutting it was a trying business getting through the stuff, especially when one was trying to make as little noise as possible.
For an hour or so we followed thus & then suddenly there was a report like a gun being fired at some distance, which was the elephant tearing up a bamboo & the Kachins stopped at once & whispered “Magwee” – elephant. We went a little further & then the Kachins halted & pointed ahead. I looked for all I was worth & could see nothing but jungle & said so, but they whispered old Jumbo was just ahead so they retired & I took the lead followed by my Burman shikari. I knelt down & waited & sure enough in about a minute there was a crash & the loud rustling sound of a huge body moving through the jungle. It seemed to be coming towards me, but I could not see anything at all. It was not a pleasant situation & when I began to think that I had never seen a wild elephant at really close quarters before & that there are only two vital spots in which to hit one, one being directly in the centre of the trunk between the eyes & the other just on or about the ear in line with the eye, I began to get the wind up properly as the most exceedingly awe-inspiring noises, including the breathing of the brute, continued obviously very close at hand but out of sight. If I could have thought of an excuse for turning back I would have taken it, but as it was there was nothing for it but to go forward, I did so very cautiously, mostly on my hands & knees. I found that although I could see no signs of the brute by trying to look through the jungle at about ground level, I could sometimes get an indication of its whereabouts by looking up as often when he moved, evidently to tear up a succulent bamboo or the branch of a tree; I could see the top leaves of the trees suddenly shiver & shake as he pushed his way through below.
I should have mentioned that before starting I made my shikari fill one of his pockets with small feathers & now I turned round occasionally & made signs for him to test the direction of the wind, which was very slight indeed but I was afraid that if Jumbo did get a whiff of me he might feel it so revolting as to charge, & though he might miss me it would be highly unpleasant. Such breeze as there was, however, was in the right direction so I slowly moved on, wishing I might come on some patch of more open jungle where I might get a chance & at the same time hoping just as strangely I wouldn’t!
Shooting elephants is nice to think about after a good dinner & in an armchair, but I found at least that the closer I got to the actual proposition the more did I feel as if I was going out to a dinner party where I did not know the people & consequently would have liked to return home.
Wednesday, 21st Novr., 1928
My Dearest Mother,
I’ve really got a lot to talk to you about if I can only do it & I’m going to start off by telling you of something which I have accomplished & to be quite frank has raised me quite a number of pegs in my own estimation. That is, I have shot & killed a notoriously dangerous wild rogue elephant which I tracked & had charge me. You knew of course that I was coming up here to try to shoot something but I didn’t like to tell you that I had determined to try for an elephant first of all, as that is an animal one cannot sit up on a tree & pot at in comfort but must follow up & shoot standing when the opportunity arrives & therefore I thought it would provide a fair test as to whether I had deteriorated seriously as the result of nearly 10 years pen pushing.
I arrived at Namkham village on Thursday evening & called the Headman (*editor's note: tantamount to "chief") to tell him I wanted to shoot one elephant & would he please send out to find out where elephants were & lead me to them. On Friday morning he came along with another Kachin to say five elephants had crossed a track near the village during the night. I therefore got out the .432 Mauser magazine rifle I borrowed from Blaquière of the Frontier Service, fired five rounds by way of experiment, gave my own rifle to my Burman shikari (*editor's note: "guide" for the hunt), it is a .35 Mannlicher-Schoenauer, & off we went.
We went along the trail from the village about a mile until we came to where the tracks of the elephants were & then we broke off into the jungle to follow along them. Considering the size of an elephant, one would expect it to make a broad swath through the jungle along which a mere man could follow quite easily, but that is not so at all & I never fail to wonder at the little disturbance it does make.
The two Kachins went in front of me & they had to use their dahs continually to cut a path for us. We followed these elephants through all types of dense jungle, tall grass in which one couldn’t see three yards & in which I prayed the elephants were not resting, then again through big tree jungle where it is never really daylight & the trees are festooned with fantastic creepers. One can see it is brilliant sunshine on the tops of the trees, but down below the light is of a dim religious order accentuated by occasional beams which pierce the upper surface. The undergrowth in this manner of jungle consists of beautiful ferns mixed up with a most abominable type of dwarf palm which is covered with small hooks & large pricks which hold onto one’s clothing in a most remarkable fashion & the only way to get through them is with a dah. We followed these elephants for three or four hours & I was very interested to see how clever the Kachins were at reading the signs on the ground, which were unintelligible to me. Frequently the elephants had strolled about to eat bamboo shoots & branches of trees & I should have been hopelessly confused by the numbers of tracks but not so the Kachins, who were never in doubt as to which to choose. We never saw the animals, however, as they went across the Namti river into the Pidaung game sanctuary before we came up with them. We therefore made for camp again & on the way I shot a sambhur which provided some very welcome meat.
On Saturday morning the same two Kachins came again with news that a single elephant had crossed a path not far from the village during the night, so off we set again. We soon got to this track & it took us at once into the most horrid jungle I think I have ever been in, consisting of a thick sort of bamboo grass mixed with proper bamboos, dwarf palms & young trees. Even following in the tracks of the elephant & with Kachins doing a certain amount of cutting it was a trying business getting through the stuff, especially when one was trying to make as little noise as possible.
For an hour or so we followed thus & then suddenly there was a report like a gun being fired at some distance, which was the elephant tearing up a bamboo & the Kachins stopped at once & whispered “Magwee” – elephant. We went a little further & then the Kachins halted & pointed ahead. I looked for all I was worth & could see nothing but jungle & said so, but they whispered old Jumbo was just ahead so they retired & I took the lead followed by my Burman shikari. I knelt down & waited & sure enough in about a minute there was a crash & the loud rustling sound of a huge body moving through the jungle. It seemed to be coming towards me, but I could not see anything at all. It was not a pleasant situation & when I began to think that I had never seen a wild elephant at really close quarters before & that there are only two vital spots in which to hit one, one being directly in the centre of the trunk between the eyes & the other just on or about the ear in line with the eye, I began to get the wind up properly as the most exceedingly awe-inspiring noises, including the breathing of the brute, continued obviously very close at hand but out of sight. If I could have thought of an excuse for turning back I would have taken it, but as it was there was nothing for it but to go forward, I did so very cautiously, mostly on my hands & knees. I found that although I could see no signs of the brute by trying to look through the jungle at about ground level, I could sometimes get an indication of its whereabouts by looking up as often when he moved, evidently to tear up a succulent bamboo or the branch of a tree; I could see the top leaves of the trees suddenly shiver & shake as he pushed his way through below.
I should have mentioned that before starting I made my shikari fill one of his pockets with small feathers & now I turned round occasionally & made signs for him to test the direction of the wind, which was very slight indeed but I was afraid that if Jumbo did get a whiff of me he might feel it so revolting as to charge, & though he might miss me it would be highly unpleasant. Such breeze as there was, however, was in the right direction so I slowly moved on, wishing I might come on some patch of more open jungle where I might get a chance & at the same time hoping just as strangely I wouldn’t!
Shooting elephants is nice to think about after a good dinner & in an armchair, but I found at least that the closer I got to the actual proposition the more did I feel as if I was going out to a dinner party where I did not know the people & consequently would have liked to return home.
