ELEPHANT TRENCHES 89 



as it would have been quite useless, inasmuch as 

 the grass would have been many feet above their 

 heads and it would have been impossible to shoot. 

 I am very sorry I lost him, both because he was 

 a fine bull, and because I cannot bear to let a 

 wounded beast linger in pain. He was, I suppose, 

 eaten in the night by hunting dogs or jackals. 



Next day we had to move on to another camp. 

 It was a very punishing operation for me. We 

 had to ford three torrents, one very deep one 

 across which we had to swim the horses. My 

 servants, who joined us at the first bungalow, 

 were absolutely numbed with wet and cold and 

 quite useless for the rest of the time they were 

 with me, and I myself was done up. Every 

 bungalow, whether pukka-built that is, of baked 

 brick or built of bamboo, has to be surrounded 

 by an elephant trench about 8 feet deep and 

 8 feet broad, as the elephants destroy bungalows 

 if they can get at them. It is on account of the 

 elephants that there are no bridges. As soon as a 

 bridge is put up an elephant looks at it with some 

 curiosity, and then proceeds to demolish it. 



I reached my second camp after a twelve-mile 

 ride, again soaked to the skin, and I found the tiny 

 house in which I had to live was made entirely of 

 bamboos, very similar to the Japanese bamboo 

 houses, beautifully built and quite weather-tight, 

 but covered with mildew and extremely damp 

 in such weather as we were enjoying. Here we 

 were locked in by torrential rain till Tuesday, 

 November 8th, when in the morning there was 

 again a break in the weather, the break lasting for 

 about four hours as on the previous occasion. 



