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Updated: June 18, 2025
This elephant completely recovered from its temporary madness, and became a useful animal, affording a striking example of the passing insanity of the male passion, and the power of careful management in subduing a brute of such stupendous force. After this incident Moota Gutche, with about forty of the keddah elephants, was kindly lent to me by Mr.
Now that both Turks and Syrians had grown used to being prisoners and to obeying us, they were less likely to think independently in the same way that a new-caught elephant in the keddah is frenzied and dangerous, but after a week or two is learning tricks. And as for choosing the night-time for the change, every soldier knows that the darkness is on the side of him whose plans are laid.
And Ahmad Din wished his keddah were completed, for never could there be a better opportunity to surround the herd than at the present moment, when they had forgotten all things except the battling monsters in the centre of the ring. The two bulls were quite evenly matched. The patriarch knew more of fighting, had learned more wiles, but he had neither the strength nor the agility of Muztagh.
Even a little boy could be of use there, and Toomai was as useful as three boys. He would get his torch and wave it, and yell with the best. But the really good time came when the driving out began, and the Keddah that is, the stockade looked like a picture of the end of the world, and men had to make signs to one another, because they could not hear themselves speak.
"The keddah, or trap, as it may be called, consists of three enclosures, each formed of strong stockades on the outside of deep ditches; the innermost one being the strongest, because by the time they arrive in it, the elephants are generally in a state of great excitement, and would soon break down a fragile enclosure, and make their escape.
Is the family of Toomai of the Elephants to be trodden underfoot in the dirt of a Keddah? Bad one! Wicked one! Worthless son! Go and wash Kala Nag and attend to his ears, and see that there are no thorns in his feet. Or else Petersen Sahib will surely catch thee and make thee a wild hunter a follower of elephant's foot tracks, a jungle bear. Bah! Shame! Go!"
The keddah being prepared, the first operation is to drive the elephants towards it, for which purpose vast bodies of men fetch a compass in the forest around the haunts of the herds, contracting it by degrees, till they complete the enclosure of a certain area, round which they kindle fires, and cut footpaths through the jungle, to enable the watchers to communicate and combine.
But, son, I am angry that thou shouldst meddle in the business that belongs to these dirty Assamese jungle folk. Kala Nag will obey none but me, so I must go with him into the Keddah, but he is only a fighting elephant, and he does not help to rope them. So I sit at my ease, as befits a mahout, not a mere hunter, a mahout, I say, and a man who gets a pension at the end of his service.
And so, after the first few, heavy, swinging steps, the reflection of the fire behind him showed him the outline of a keddah just in front, and with a shrill roar of rage Rataplan turned suddenly and fiercely round, dashed headlong through the line of fire, and, with a mighty trumpeting, disappeared into the forest.
Many times the herd would leave their trail and start to dip into a valley or a creek-bed, but always there was a new crowd of beaters to block their path. But presently the beaters closed in on them. Then the animals began a wild descent squarely toward the mouth of the keddah. "Hai!" the wild men cried. "Oh, you forest pigs! On, on!
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