Such Was The Comical End
Of My First Elephant Ride.
I think that altogether I walked about eight
miles, and I was not knocked up; this says a great deal for the climate
of Perak.
The Malay who came with me told the people here that it was
"a wicked elephant," but I have since been told "that it was very sick
and tired to death," which I hope is the true version of its most
obnoxious conduct.
I have said nothing about the magnificence of the scenery for a part of
the way, where the road goes through a grand mountain pass, where all
the vegetable glories of the tropics seem assembled, and one gets a new
idea of what scenery can be; while beneath superb tree-ferns and
untattered bananas, and palms, and bright-flowered lianas, and graceful
trailers, and vermilion-colored orchids, and under sun-birds and
humming birds and the most splendid butterflies I ever saw, a torrent,
as clear as crystal, dashes over the rocks, and adds the music of
tumbling water to the enchantment of a scene whose loveliness no words
can give any idea of. The pass of Bukit Berapit, seen in solitude on a
glorious morning, is almost worth a journey round the world.
Another wonder of the route is Gunong Pondok, a huge butte or isolated
mass of red and white limestone, much weather-stained and ore-stained
with very brilliant colors, full of caverns, many of which are quite
inaccessible, their entrances fringed with immense stalactites.
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