He Threw
Quantities Of Water Over Himself, And Took Up Plenty More With Which To
Cool His Sides As He Went Along.
Thick as the wrinkled hide of an
elephant looks, a very small insect can draw blood from it, and, when
left to himself, he sagaciously plasters himself with mud to protect
himself like the water buffalo.
Mounting again, I rode for another two
hours, but he crawled about a mile an hour, and seemed to have a steady
purpose to lie down. He roared whenever he was asked to go faster,
sometimes with a roar of rage, sometimes in angry and sometimes in
plaintive remonstrance. The driver got off and walked behind him, and
then he stopped altogether. Then the man tried to pull him along by
putting a hooked stick in his huge "flapper," but this produced no
other effect than a series of howls; then he got on his head again,
after which the brute made a succession of huge stumbles, each one of
which threatened to be a fall, and then the driver, with a look of
despair, got off again. Then I made signs that I would get off, but the
elephant refused to lie down, and I let myself down his unshapely
shoulder by a rattan rope, till I could use the mahout's shoulders as
steps. The baskets were taken off and left at a house, the elephant was
turned loose in the jungle; I walked the remaining miles to Kwala
Kangsa, and the driver carried my portmanteau!
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