BOGGED IN A "FUSSAND." 149 



ing this sport that from a timid elephant being about the 

 worst ; for if an animal of this kind gets thoroughly terrified 

 and bolts among tree jungle, the consequences are likely to 

 be disastrous. I once had my howdah and one of my guns 

 smashed to bits by a runaway brute of this sort. Fortu- 

 nately I was not in the howdah at the time. 



A source of constant danger with us on this trip was a 

 vicious " mukna " (tuskless male) elephant. The brute had 

 already killed two men, and nobody but his mahout dared 

 approach him. Whenever any of us had occasion to dis- 

 mount from our elephants, the first question was always as 

 to the whereabouts in the line of Moula Buksh, as our 

 dangerous friend was named. 



Getting badly bogged in a " fussand," as the natives call 

 a quaking morass, ranks about next in order. And an 

 incident that occurred in this day's beat will serve to show 

 what it means. 



"We had been beating slowly and with difficulty through 

 the patches of bent jungle, and plying the more inaccessible 

 spots with anclrs, without having seen a sign of a striped 

 jacket, when, on reaching a more than usually swampy place, 

 Golab Soondrie (Anglic^ Beautiful Eose), the steady old 

 elephant I was on, showed a decided disinclination to enter- 

 ing it. Not wishing to leave my place in the line, I made 

 the mahout urge her forward, and she had not taken more 

 than a few steps when she was floundering about up to her 

 middle in thick black mud and water. The old lady find- 

 ing she had got fairly into it, continued to struggle bravely 

 on towards some firmer -looking ground a short distance in 

 front. But ere reaching this her body was almost entirely 

 submerged in the foul inky fluid, in which she rolled about 

 like a dismasted ship in a heavy sea. It was impossible to 

 leave the howdah on account of the depth of water ; and in 

 such cases, even when the ground is stable enough to admit 

 of dismounting, it has to be done with caution : for an 

 elephant, on finding itself in a fix of this kind, is said to be 



