The Best Couple In The Town Was
Brought Before Us.
Their owner assured us "that the Prince
of Wales had ridden upon them and was very contented." To go
There and back and have them in attendance the whole day - in fact
the whole pleasure-trip - was to cost us two rupees for each elephant.
Our native friends, accustomed from infancy to this way of riding,
were not long in getting on the back of their elephant. They
covered him like flies, with no predilection for this or that
spot of his vast back. They held on by all kinds of strings and
ropes, more with their toes than their fingers, and, on the whole,
presented a picture of contentment and comfort. We Europeans had
to use the lady elephant, as being the tamer of the two. On her
back there were two little benches with sloping seats on both sides,
and not the slightest prop for our backs. The wretched, undergrown
youngsters seen in European circuses give no idea of the real size
of this noble beast. The mahout, or driver, placed himself between
the huge animal's ears whilst we gazed at the "perfected" seats
ready for us with an uneasy feeling of distrust The mahout ordered
his elephant to kneel, and it must be owned that in climbing on her
back with the aid of a small ladder, I felt what the French call
chair de poule. Our she-elephant answered to the poetical name
of "Chanchuli Peri," the Active Fairy, and really was the most
obedient and the merriest of all the representatives of her tribe
that I have ever seen.
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