THE KING'S MAHOUT 17 



the highest orders of merit in the gift of the 

 king. 



So while the little colony of catchers in the 

 jungle lost no sleep and missed no fish curry on 

 account of the reported white elephant, which, let 

 me say here, did not materialize, yet the move- 

 ment toward the interior began on the day after 

 our arrival. We moved slowly — very slowly, for 

 the elephant normally does not travel faster than 

 about four miles an hour— through heavy, rather 

 open forest, and stretches of thinnish woodland, 

 where the jungle undergrowth was so dense that 

 even the elephants avoided it. Quite the most 

 interesting jungle thing I saw on these several 

 days of inland travel was the Poh tree, sacred to 

 the Siamese because, it is said, under its shade 

 Buddha had his last earthly sleep. 



At night we camped in groups; the mahouts 

 divided between two, the beaters or scouts, who 

 walked, scattered among a dozen others. The 

 whole formed a large circle, of which the inner 

 part was filled with little bamboo platforms raised 

 four or five feet above the ground for sleeping. 

 Outside this circle was a larger one around which 

 flamed the many separate fires of each group of 

 mahouts and beaters, that were used first for cook- 

 ing, and kept burning throughout the night as a 

 danger signal to prowling beasts, and as an inade- 



2 



