me as a trophy. Having
succeeded in noosing this elephant also, we were dragging him away in the
usual manner between two others, when he snapped one of the ropes and
started off, pulling after him the elephant that still remained attached
to him, and dashed through the jungle at full speed, notwithstanding the
struggles of the involuntary companion of his flight. For a moment I
feared that the courage of the mahout would give way in that pell-mell
career, and that he would slip the rope which bound the two animals
together. But he held on manfully, and after another exciting chace we
succeeded in surrounding the maddened monster; my elephant jostled him so
closely that I could touch him as we went neck and neck. It is a curious
fact that the elephants never seem to think of uncurling their trunks,
and sweeping their persecutors from the backs of their tame brethren:
this they have never been known to do, though it has not unfrequently
occurred that a wild herd have proved more than a match for the tame one,
and then there is nothing for it but to turn and make off in an
ignominious retreat as fast as the blows of the mahouts can urge them. It
is only under these circumstances that there is any danger to the riders,
and such an occurrence can take place only when the tame herd is small,
and encounters an unusually large number of the wild elephants. Upon
this occasion we mustered so strong that defeat was out of the question.

We now heard a terrific bellowing at a short distance, which, in my
ignorance, I thought proceeded from a huge tusker making a gallant
resistance somewhere; I was rather disappointed, therefore, to find that
the object of interest to a large group of men and elephants was only a
young one struggling on his back in a deep hole into which he had fallen,
and from which he was totally unable to extricate himself. Lying on his
back, and kicking his legs wildly about in the air, he looked the most
ridiculous object imaginable, and certainly made more noise in proportion
to his size than any baby I ever heard. So incessant was his roaring
that we could scarcely hear each other speak; at last, by means of ropes
attached to various parts of his body, and by dint of a great deal of
pulling and hauling, we extricated the unfortunate infant from his
awkward position.

The poor little animal had not had a long life before experiencing its
ups and downs, and it now looked excessively bewildered at not