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Zoroaster imposed upon innocent American globe trotters, and there was plenty of people who kept reminding us that we might have obtained an elephant for nothing. But Zoroaster is all right; his elephants are all right; the mahouts who steer them are all right, and it is worth fifteen rupees to ride to Amber on the back of a great, big clumsy beast, although you don't realize it at the time.
Chota Begum continued stolidly walking round and round. Meanwhile language most unsuited to a Sunday School arose from other members of the party, who were also careering round and round in small circles. Finally an Irish A.D.C. summed up the situation by crying, "These mahouts have us beat," whereupon we capitulated, and a simultaneous shout went up, "Ohe, Mahout-log!"
"The elephant who is to reach us this evening, is a black elephant descended from the lines of ancient Persia." A chorus of exclamations swept the circle, before the gurgle of hookahs took the moment, as the mahouts gave themselves to meditation and water-winnowed smoke. Then the trumpet tones of an elephant were heard from far out in the gathering gloom.
Even more was I amazed to see hundreds upon hundreds of cages containing beasts not from northern Europe, but from Africa, or even from Asia: lions without number, panthers and leopards by the hundred, many tigers, antelopes of all kinds by scores of each kind, rhinoceroses, and hippopotami in enormous cages on gigantic wains drawn by twelve yoke of oxen; even a dozen huge gray elephants pacing sedately, their turbaned mahouts rocking on their necks.
'Call up your beast, said the planter, and Deesa shouted in the mysterious elephant-language, that some mahouts believe came from China at the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were masters. Moti Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They move from spots at varying rates of speed.
Then Neela Deo stood back, put up his trunk and uttered a long, strong blast. They were ringing tones mounting clarion tones, with tremendous volume at the top. They were the King's proclamation of victory. The mahouts answered him in High Himalayan voices full of unleashed devotion. The caravan made announcement of that allegiance the heart of an elephant gives sometimes.
Real danger had suddenly entered into the adventure; and they showed it. A wounded tiger at bay can do desperate things, and some of the elephants now refused to budge forward any more, or complied only with terrified screams. Some of the unarmed mahouts were also reluctant, and shouted their fears. But the shikaree was inexorable. There the tiger was, and we must drive it out.
That night and the next day, he kept the body between his feet the body of the little child he kept save when he swung it. No man could prevent. For this reason I am his to him; and he is mine to me!" "Well done, well done!" the mellow voice of Kudrat Sharif spoke softly; and the mahouts of the Chief Commissioner's stockades assented.
Gunpat Rao was one of the finest young elephants in captivity; one of the swiftest in the caravan; but the mahouts knew he could not think a trick! The sense of his danger swept them. The Gul Moti knew that "white elephants" are always feared being almost always bad. This one was not white; nor grey, nor yellow. He was whitish-grey dull-tawny overcast unclean looking.
After crossing the sand, we again entered some thin scrubby acacia jungle, with here and there a moist swampy nullah, with rank green patair jungle growing in the cool dank shade. Here we disturbed a colony of pigs, but the four mahouts being Mahommedans I did not fire. As we went along, one of my men called my attention to some footprints near a small lagoon.
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