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Updated: April 30, 2025
When the subaltern was ready the second elephant was ordered to kneel down for him; and he clambered up awkwardly and clung on tightly when the mahout, getting astride of the great neck, made it rise. Along a broad road cut through the forest the huge beasts lumbered with a plunging, swaying stride that was very tiring to a novice.
Each elephant has his own driver, and there is quite a large vocabulary of elephant language. The mahout carried an invaluable knife-weapon, called a parang, broadest and heaviest at the point, and as we passed through the jungle he slashed to right and left to clear the track, and quite thick twigs fell with hardly an effort on his part.
With the quick perception of a boy, Alec noticed he had used up all the dust within reach, so he got him a few hatfuls from the roadside, for which he was very grateful, and immediately sent a sand blast over his back that annihilated quite a colony of mosquitoes. Then he admitted Alec to his friendship, and they became pals. Hard by the mahout was cooking his dinner under a tamarind-tree.
I fired exactly below the nose, and the tiger simply rolled upon its side stone-dead, the bullet having completely raked it. Leaving the body where it lay, my elephant now responded to the driver's hook, and advanced steadily towards the spot where we had seen the cloud of dust which denoted the attack upon the mahout.
Chakkra reported at this point that he had seen this elephant in the market place, an old male with a woman's howdah, covering too few of his wrinkles and a mahout who would ruin the disposition of anything but a man-killer. Chakkra appeared to have an actual hatred toward this man, for he enquired of the Deputy: "Have I your permission to deal with the mahout of this thief elephant?"
Because the British Government was in the land, Deesa, the mahout, enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. When he had made much money through the strength of his elephant, he would get extremely drunk and give Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over the tender nails of the forefeet.
The very best of all the elephants belonged to the very worst of all the drivers or mahouts; and the superior beast's name was Moti Guj. He was the absolute property of his mahout, which would never have been the case under native rule, for Moti Guj was a creature to be desired by kings; and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl Elephant.
The day the boy came with sweets Maharaj was delighted, for he smelt them a long way off, and never made a mistake as to which pocket they were in. It was wonderful to see how gently he could play with the little brown baby of the mahout.
Dermot gave a piercing whistle and stood waiting, while the overjoyed subaltern walked round and round the dead bison, marvelling at its size and exclaiming at his own good fortune. When in a few minutes Badshah appeared, followed by the panting men, Colonel Dermot sent the mahout on his elephant to the stable to fetch other men to cut up and bring in the bison.
"I don't suppose you'll have to, for the big chuckle-headed bully will have to lick me first, and I dare say I can manage to tire him so that you can easily lick him in turn." "You are not going to fight him," cried Singh hotly. "Yes, I am." "You are not. He insulted my dead father. A mahout indeed!" "So he did mine," said Glyn. "A shabby half-pay military officer indeed!
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