232 ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



gave him the coup de grace. Rushing up to my 

 tracker, who I felt sure had been killed, I was 

 delighted to find not only that he was alive but 

 that his injuries were far less serious than the 

 nature of the encounter would have led one to 

 expect. The blow that he had received from the 

 buffalo's horn had badly bruised his thigh and cut 

 a deep gash in the flesh, but luckily no bones were 

 broken. The flesh wound I speedily disinfected 

 and stitched up, a fine slip of sharpened bamboo 

 serving as needle, the thread being procured by 

 unravelling the twill of my khaki shirt such is 

 the rough and ready surgery of the pori and ere 

 a month had passed, Malingum had quite recovered 

 from the ill-effects of his unexpected encounter. 



The natives of the neighbouring village after- 

 wards informed me that this very buffalo, which 

 they said was undoubtedly mad, had killed two of 

 their comrades who had followed it up. 



The sequel attaching to this little adventure is 

 as follows. When Malingum had quite recovered 

 from his injuries, I noticed that he suffered from 

 severe mental depression, and as he was one of 

 those happy, laughing, devil-may-care, God-send- 

 holidays-and-Sundays-often kind of fellows, who 

 appeared to have a sweetheart in every village 

 through which we passed, I was naturally at a loss 

 to account for his strange change of manner. On 



