2l6 THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA 



roused from deep sleep. The eager sportsmen, however, 

 do not take long to get into their khaki hunting jackets, 

 and take at their tent doors the refreshing hot tea and 

 toast. The elephants are ready. Howdahs are strapped 

 on tightly, each girth being tightened by a ratchet 

 windlass with iron chains, besides the rope girthing round 

 the pad. A howdah coming loose or getting displaced 

 in a scrimmage with tigers might be serious. But in the 

 camp of Colonel Ramsay, who had slain his ' century ' of 

 tigers, such things are properly seen to ; the elephants are 

 staunch to the backbone, and the mahouts and men require 

 no instructions. The hara sahib rides a splendid tusker 

 called Ram Bux. He was a notorious fighting tusker, and 

 would, if so instructed by a word from his mahout and a 

 gentle kick behind the ear from his bare toes, by which 

 he was guided to right or left, rush in on a wounded 

 tiger, and impale him on his pointed tusks and kneel on 

 him to the death. Otherwise he stood as steady as a rock 

 when a tiger charged, and gave his master a steady shot. 

 The shots from the Colonel's favourite double Sam Smith 

 rifles, with 14-bore round bullets, were delivered with 

 such coolness and accuracy that in many encounters 

 during a series of years Ram Bux had never once been 

 wounded ; so that mahout and elephant had perfect con- 

 fidence in their master, and never flinched from the most 

 furious charge of a roaring tiger, enough to terrify some 

 elephants and make them turn sharp round and bolt. 

 When this happens, the result may be an unsteady shot, 

 and that the tiger lands straight on the tail of the ele- 

 phant, which gets gashed by the sharp claws of the infuri- 

 ated brute, and the elephant becomes unmanageable and 

 always unsteady ever after. Colonel Ramsay used to 

 say that he would not lend his staunchest shikari elephants 

 to a bad shot, as it is the bad shot who spoils the elephant. 



