136 A PLUCKY MAHOUT. 



the shoulder of some fine cheetal stag, whilst he stood to 

 gaze for a few moments at the elephants steadily forcing 

 their way through the tangled jungle, when his sleek dappled 

 coat and long tapering antlers would slowly disappear in 

 the thick cover, as though the animal knew he had nothing 

 to fear. 



The manoeuvres of an elephant whilst slowly forging its 

 way through heavy jungle are quite an interesting study. 

 The control its mahout (driver) has over the huge but docile 

 animal is truly marvellous, as he verbally directs it here to 

 tear down a tough obstructive creeper, or a projecting bough, 

 with its trunk, there to fell with its forehead a good-sized 

 tree that may impede its course in the line, or to break 

 away some precipitous bank of a nullah (water-course) with 

 its fore feet, to form a path for descending into it, and then, 

 after the same fashion, to clamber up the opposite side. 

 And if its driver should chance to drop his gujbag (iron goad) 

 among the long grass, with what confiding sagacity does the 

 animal grope about for it and lift it up to him with its 

 trunk ! In tiger-shooting, however steady an elephant may 

 naturally be, its behaviour very much depends on the con- 

 duct of its mahout. I may mention a remarkable instance 

 of cool pluck on the part of a mahout, which occurred 

 during a tiger-beat in the Dehra Doon. Amongst some 

 elephants attached to my regiment, as transport for our 

 ammunition on field service, was a very fast and steady one 

 which had had the honour of carrying the Prince of Wales 

 when tiger-shooting in the Kuinaon Terai. The mahout 

 who drove Alice, as she was named, always wore in his 

 girdle a hunting-knife, which he showed with much pride 

 as having been bestowed on him by his Royal Highness. 

 One day, during a scrimmage with a tiger, this knife 

 dropped from the man's girdle. " Oh, my knife ! my 

 knife ! " he exclaimed, and instantly slipped down off his 

 elephant's neck on to the ground to recover it, at the 

 imminent risk of being boned by the tiger. 



