AN ELEPHANT 213 



of course very valuable. The Controller meant 

 well and during my stay treated me with the utmost 

 kindness and consideration— for which he shall 

 always hold a warm spot in my heart— but the sum 

 and substance of the rare information which this 

 two weeks of dining and " pinting " and pow- 

 wowing developed, was that, at the foot of the 

 range over towards the eastern coast, elephants 

 were said to be plentiful, and if I " just followed 

 the rivers " branch by branch in that direction, 

 etc., etc., " until I could get no farther," I should 

 be well on towards the elephant country; simple 

 directions surely. 



And so we set out. 



My outfit, gathered after days of persuasion and 

 hours of consultation with the Sultan, consisted of 

 a sampan, a beamy type of rowboat common to the 

 Asiatic coast from Yokohama to Calcutta, a six- 

 paddle dug-out, two Chinamen, and four Malays. 

 I had no interpreter— not even the Sultan could 

 lay hands upon one. The provisions (rice, coffee, 

 flour, salt and fish) and the Chinamen were in the 

 sampan; and the four Malays and I were in the 

 dug-out. When it was impossible to camp on the 

 river banks, as most usually it was, four of us 

 slept in the sampan, the other three in the dug-out ; 

 and when it rained, as it did for a great share of 

 the time, I rigged a palm-leaf covering over the 



