14 MODERN PIG-STICKING 



her head and one leg remained above the surface. 

 The edge of the quicksand was lined with vultures 

 an error in their judgment. A protesting village 

 spent half a day in getting her out. She then died. 



Crossing over streams on an elephant, you can 

 often see the whole bed heaving for yards around. 

 But the elephants seem to know what they are 

 about, and seldom get caught. 



I must turn aside for a minute to tell you of 

 another experience of mine with quicksands. 

 Shooting with Mr. Cotton of the I.C.S., Nepaul way, 

 we were camped over the Sarda River, and had to 

 cross it daily to get to our ground. One morning 

 we must have taken a different course, for one of 

 our howdah elephants was in evident trouble 

 coming out of the water. By the time we had got 

 to dry -looking sand he was badly bogged, or 

 " fussunded," as the phrase is. 



We at once cut the girths and got the howdah 

 off, but the beast still sank. His struggles were 

 tremendous and he trumpeted incessantly. We 

 cut all the grass and trees we could find, and, 

 standing out of reach, threw them for him to tread 

 on. This was no use. We then got a big ferry 

 boat and tore planks out of that, and put them in 

 reach of his trunk. He used to seize the beams 

 and throw them away. It was obvious that the 

 old story of the elephant tearing off his rider to 

 tread him under foot as a stepping-stone to higher 

 things was a myth. 



We went right up to him, and, by diving and 

 scooping, got a rope round one leg. We hitched 

 this on to a couple of elephants, and pulled like the 

 devil. All the elephants yelled, we shouted; the 

 uproar was terrific. The rope broke, and the pulling 



