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Updated: May 8, 2025
Phileas Fogg and Sir Francis Cromarty, plunged to the neck in the peculiar howdahs provided for them, were horribly jostled by the swift trotting of the elephant, spurred on as he was by the skilful Parsee; but they endured the discomfort with true British phlegm, talking little, and scarcely able to catch a glimpse of each other.
For riding they are to my mind the most comfortable head-dress that can be worn, and they are certainly more graceful than the stiff unsightly solah hat. Between every two howdahs are four or five pad elephants. These beat up all the intervening bushes, and carry the game that may be shot.
Probably the parade of elephants and bright coloured howdahs, and the shouts of the beaters and shikarries, distracted his attention for a moment. He stood whirling his tail to right and left, with half dropped jaw and flaming eyes, half pressing, half grabbing the fleshy arm of the senseless man beneath him impatient, alarmed, and horrible.
"What did this fakir see?" whispered Bruce as he donned his burnoose again. "Many wonderful things; but perhaps the fakir lied. They all lie. Yet . . . hurry!" The quartet passed out of the city unmolested. Ramabai's house was supposed to be under strict surveillance; but the soldiers, due to largess, were junketing in the bazaars. Shortly they came up to two elephants with howdahs.
Sometimes a gigantic elephant was observed under the shade of a tree, fanning off the flies with a branch of palm; others were pacing along, decked in gaudy trappings, and hearing their masters in howdahs through the fields or plantations. The most elegant and picturesque buildings are the temples and habitations of the Brahmins, in situations remote from the busy haunts of men.
The two parties from the steamer and the island were ashore before daybreak, to find an imposing gathering of the sultan's people coming down to meet them. There were over thirty elephants, large and small, with their attendants, and the beasts were furnished with showy cloths under their rattan basket howdahs.
She often saw them creeping along at this silent and dusky hour waggon after waggon, bearing green bastions of cabbages nodding to their fall, yet never falling, walls of baskets enclosing masses of beans and peas, pyramids of snow-white turnips, swaying howdahs of mixed produce creeping along behind aged night-horses, who seemed ever patiently wondering between their hollow coughs why they had always to work at that still hour when all other sentient creatures were privileged to rest.
"Absolutely safe!" the Chief Commissioner assured him. "The caparisons may be doused in the Nerbudda, but the howdahs will not be in the least wet." "What did she mean that she'd fetch them all back?" "She meant that Mitha Baba has been used in the High Hills for years before she was sent down to decoy wild elephants into the trap-stockades.
The preparations for the fresh start chased away his forebodings, and the packing having been rapidly performed, soldier, sailor, and Malay were soon in motion, the long train winding its way through the dense jungle, with the rattan panniers and howdahs of the elephants brushing the lush verdure on either side.
"But I shall never wear a precious stone again, if I live. I abhor them!" "I am my father's daughter," said Winnie. "Put the howdahs on the two elephants," Umballa ordered. The men obeyed clumsily, being fishermen by occupation and mahouts by compulsion. Kathlyn tried in vain to see where they were taking Bruce and the others.
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