on his back. The
elephant said no more, but he turned sulky. Enough was as good as a
feast with him, and he considered this treatment as no joke. Now it so
happened that at the time the main street, and the only street of the
town, which was at least half a mile long, was crowded to suffocation
with tattoos, or little ponies, and small oxen, every one of them loaded
with a couple of cases of claret, or brandy, or something else, slung on
each side of them, attended by coolies, who, with their hooting, and
pushing, and beating, and screaming, created a very bustling and lively
scene. When the last tent was put on the elephant he was like a
mountain with canvass on each side of him, bulging out to a width equal
to his own; there was just room for him to pass through the two rows of
houses on each side of the street, and not ten inches to spare; he was
ordered by the keeper to go on--he obeyed the order certainly, but in
what way--he threw his trunk up in the air, screamed a loud shriek of
indignation, and set off at a trot, which was about equal in speed to a
horse's gallop, right down the street, mowing down before him every
pony, bullock, and coolie that barred his passage; the confusion was
indescribable, all the little animals were with their legs in the air,
claret and brandy poured in rivulets down the streets, coolies screamed
as they threw themselves into the doors and windows; and at one fell
swoop the angry gentle man demolished the major part of the comforts of
the officers, who were little aware how much they were to sacrifice for
the sake of an extra tent. With my eyes I followed my friend in his
reckless career, until he was enveloped and hid from my view in a cloud
of dust, and that was my farewell of him. I turned round, and observed
close to me the quarter-master general, looking with all his _four eyes_
at the effects of his inhumanity. But I have wandered some twenty
thousand miles from Brussels, and must return.

CHAPTER SIX.

Brussels, May 5.
His Belgian Majesty, the Belgian ministers, Belgian ambassadors, Belgian
authorities, and all the Belgian nobility and gentry, all the English
who reside in Brussels for economy and quiet, and all the exiles and
propaganda who reside here to kick up a row, have all left Brussels by
the Porte d'Anvers. And all the Belgians who live at Brussels have shut
up their shops, and gone out by the Porte d