THE BLAT ELEPHANT. 189 



of an incessant beating with stinging nettles, was 

 almost intolerable. The myriads that hung in clouds 

 round our heads made it difficult to see, and almost 

 impossible to hear. And it was in great part due to 

 the mosquitoes that when we got up to the elephant, 

 which had by wallowing protected itself with a thick 

 coating of mud, we were unable to get close enough 

 for a shot. I managed to see some branches moving, 

 but that was all. At last, when the elephant either 

 scented or heard us and made off, we were so tortured 

 as to be glad of any excuse to return to our boat. 



The banks that hid this most unpleasant spot were 

 sliding quickly by us, and soon after sunset the house- 

 boat entered the Sol, a tributary of the Blat. A short 

 way up this river the mangroves were replaced by 

 ordinary forest, and before long a bend in the river 

 disclosed the cheerful light of a small house in an 

 isolated clearing on the bank. We tied up at the 

 landing-stage, and in answer to our hail the owner 

 of the house, a man named Brahim, came down to 

 the boat. 



He was able to give us all the information that we 

 required. The great solitary elephant, which for years 

 out of memory had appeared at intervals in the valley 

 of the Blat, played no small part in his life and in that 

 of the agricultural population of the district. On 

 every visit it did an enormous amount of damage in 

 the plantations and gardens, destroying cocoa-nut and 

 plantain trees and knocking down houses, and Brahim 

 and the Malays of the district looked upon it as one of 

 the ills to which their life was subject. They regarded 

 it as they would regard a flood, a harvest failure, or an 



