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Updated: July 13, 2025
The fields were trodden down and their produce carried off. The sugar-canes were looted by elephants and camp-followers; the well-ropes stolen to serve as drag-ropes; and if any of the country-people attempted to defend their property, they were cruelly ill-treated. The force increased, too, as they advanced. The horse-keepers' wives with their children joined them, not knowing where else to go.
At first it was a sort of race between us; and, as the public is usually from thirty to fifty years old, naturally we of young Oxford, that averaged about twenty, had the advantage. Then the public took to bribing, giving fees to horse-keepers, &c., who hired out their persons as warming-pans on the box seat. That, you know, was shocking to all moral sensibilities.
Just as we were starting, we noticed two large elephants feeding on the rocky hills within a quarter of a mile of us; but having no guns up, with the exception of one rifle, we were obliged to postpone the attack, and, cautioning the horse-keepers to observe silence lest the game should be alarmed, we left the elephants to their meal, while we struck off in another direction with the greyhounds.
There were two elephants to carry our tents, and twenty or more coolies who transported our beds, canteens, and provisions, besides servants, and grass-cutters, and horse-keepers, the mahouts who rode the elephants, and two professional sportsmen, Moors they are called, whose especial business it is to track and capture the elephants.
Our tents and coolies were far behind, our horse-keepers were our only attendants, and we fixed upon a spot as the most eligible site for the tents. A large open park lay before us, interspersed with trees, and clumps of forest.
However, there was no alternative, and, after a little consultation, the latter plan was resolved upon. Dismounting, we ordered the horse-keepers to conceal the horses and themselves behind a thick bush, lest the elephant should observe them, and with this precaution we advanced, making a circuit of nearly a mile to obtain the wind.
We could see nothing; and at first we feared that some mistake had occurred as to the station of the carriage in which case we might have sought for it vainly through the intricate labyrinth of the streets in that quarter. I first descried it by the light of a torch, reflected powerfully from the large eyes of the leaders. All was ready. Horse-keepers were at the horses' heads.
As it was, I had left my sword with Jennifer because the captured trooper whose understudy I was had left his sword in camp, I tried to parley with the sentry. He knew no word of English, nor I of Cherokee; but that deadlock was speedily broken. A guttural call summoned others of the horse-keepers, and among them one who spoke a little English. "Ugh! What for take white squaw horse?" he demanded.
Nor did he ever buy a slave for above fifteen hundred drachmas; as he did not seek for effeminate and handsome ones, but able, sturdy workmen, horse-keepers and cow-herds: and these he thought ought to be sold again, when they grew old, and no useless servants fed in a house.
He nodded assent. From that moment the trouble was over. Footsore mafoos, lame horses, grumbling innkeepers nothing mattered. "Let the fires burn quickly." "Out with the horses," The other horse-keepers, not understanding his changed attitude, toiled wearily after him.
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