I Hinted That I Would, And The Man At Once Got Up And Called
To Him An Ape Or Monkey About Three Feet High, Which Was Playing With A
Child, And The Animal Went Out With Him, And In No Time Was At The Top
Of A Tall Cocoa-Nut Tree.
His master said something to him, and he
moved about examining the nuts till he decided upon a green one, which
he wrung off, using teeth and hands for the operation.
The slightly
acid milk was refreshing, but its "meat," which was of the consistency
and nearly the tastelessness of the white of an egg boiled for five
minutes, was not so good as that of the riper nuts.
I had walked on for some distance, and I had to walk back again before
I found my elephant. I had been poking about in the scrub in search of
some acid fruits, and when I got back to the road, was much surprised
to find that my boots were filled with blood, and on looking for the
cause I found five small brown leeches, beautifully striped with
yellow, firmly attached to my ankles. I had not heard that these were
pests in Perak, and feared that they were something worse; but the
elephant driver, seeing my plight, made some tobacco juice and squirted
it over the creatures, when they recoiled in great disgust. Owing to
the exercise I was obliged to take, the bites bled for several hours. I
do not remember feeling the first puncture. I have now heard that these
blood-suckers infest leaves and herbage, and that when they hear the
rustling made by man or animal in passing, they stretch themselves to
their fullest length, and if they can touch any part of his body or
dress they hold on to it, and as quickly as possible reach some spot
where they can suck their fill.
I am making my narrative as slow as my journey, but the things I write
of will be as new to you as they were to me. New it was certainly to
stand upon a carpet of the sensitive plant at noon, with the rays of a
nearly vertical sun streaming down from a cloudless, steely blue sky,
watching the jungle monster meekly kneeling on the ground, with two
Malays who do not know a word of English as my companions, and myself
unarmed and unescorted in the heart of a region so lately the scene of
war, about which seven blue books have been written, and about the
lawlessness and violence of which so many stories have been
industriously circulated.
Certainly I always dreamed that there must be something splendid in
riding on an elephant, but I don't feel the least accession of dignity
in consequence. It is true, however, here, that though the trappings
are mean and almost savage, a man's importance is estimated by the
number of his elephants. When the pack was adjusted, the mahout jumped
on the back, and giving me his hands hauled me up over the head, after
which the creature rose gently from the ground, and we went on our
journey.
But the ride was "a fearful joy," _if_ a joy at all! Soon the driver
jumped off for a gossip and a smoke, leaving the elephant to "gang his
ain gates" for a mile or more, and he turned into the jungle, where he
began to rend and tear the trees, and then going to a mud-hole, he drew
all the water out of it, squirted it with a loud noise over himself and
his riders, soaking my clothes with it, and when he turned back to the
road again, he several times stopped and seemed to stand on his head by
stiffening his proboscis and leaning upon it, and when I hit him with
my umbrella he uttered the loudest roar I ever heard. My Malay fellow-
rider jumped off and ran back for the driver, on which the panniers
came altogether down on my side, and I hung on with difficulty,
wondering what other possible contingencies could occur, always
expecting that the beast, which was flourishing his proboscis, would
lift me off with it and deposit me in a mud-hole.
On the driver's return I had to dismount again, and this time the
elephant was allowed to go and take a proper bath in a river. 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! Such was the comical end
of my first elephant ride.
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