Note 18 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
In Capt. Owen’s Surveying Voyage (vol. ii., p. 274) there is a curious account of the effects of a drought on the elephants, at Benguela (west coast of Africa). “A number of these animals had sometime since entered the town, in a body, to possess themselves of the wells, not being able to procure any water in the country. The inhabitants mustered, when a desperate conflict ensued, which terminated in the ultimate discomfiture of the invaders, but not until they had killed one man, and wounded several others.” The town is said to have a population of nearly three thousand!