e was scarcely any cover, only here and there a few stunted acacia
bushes. The dense forest was two or three miles ahead, but there were
several nasty steep banks, and precipitous gullies with deep water
rushing between. Attached to each Nepaulee pad, by a stout
curiously-plaited cord, ornamented with fancy knots and tassels of
silk, was a small pestle-shaped instrument, not unlike an auctioneer's
hammer. It was quaintly carved, and studded with short, blunt,
shining, brass nails or spikes. I had noticed these hanging down from
the pads, and had often wondered what they were for. I was now to see
them used. While the mahouts in front rained a shower of blows on the
elephants head, and the spear-men pricked him up from behind with
their jhethas, the occupant of the pad, turning round with his face to
the tail, belaboured the poor hathee with the auctioneer's hammer. The
blows rattled on the elephant's rump. The brutes trumpeted with pain,
but they _did_ put on the pace, and travelled as I never imagined an
elephant _could_ travel. Past bush and brake, down precipitous ravine,
over the stones, through the thorny scrub, dashing down a steep bank
here, plunging madly through a deep stream there, we shuffled along.
We must have been going fully seven miles an hour. The pestle-shaped
hammer is called a _lohath_, and most unmercifully were they wielded.
We were jostled and jolted, till every bone ached again. Clouds of
dust were driven before our reeling waving line. How the Nepaulese
shouted and capered. We were all mad with excitement. I shouted with
the rest. The fat little Major kicked his heels against the sides of
his elephant, as if he were spurring a Derby winner to victory. Our
usually sedate captain yelled--actually yelled!--in an agony of
excitement, and tried to execute a war dance of his own on the floor
of his howdah. Our guns rattled, the chains clanked and jangled, the
howdahs rocked and pitched from side to side. We made a desperate
effort. The poor elephants made a gallant race of it. The foot men
perspired and swore, but it was not to be. Our striped friend had the
best of the start, and we gained not an inch upon him. To our
unspeakable mortification, he reached the dense cover on ahead, where
we might as well have sought for a needle in a haystack. Never,
however, shall I forget that mad headlong scramble. Fancy an elephant
steeple-chase. Reader, it was sublime; but we ached for it next day.

The old Major