198 THE FIRST FALL. 



couragement or abuse of their beasts from the mahouts, as 

 they vie with each other in their endeavours to keep the wild 

 herd in view. We have plenty to do in perpetually ducking 

 our heads and bending our bodies to avoid projecting branches. 



There goes the first fall ! An excited Goorkha is swept 

 clean off the pad of an elephant near me by a tough creeper 

 catching him across the middle, sending him sprawling among 

 the bushes. There is no stopping to pick him up, but I glance 

 back and see him on his legs again, he fortunately having 

 fallen on a soft place. Now we are rolling and floundering 

 through a quaking bog, from the black tenacious mud of 

 which the elephants slowly and with difficulty drag their feet 

 with a succession of squelchy sucking sounds. This causes 

 a temporary check, and gives the fallen Goorkha time to 

 scramble up on to his elephant, an acrobatic feat he accom- 

 plishes with the assistance of the animal's tail. But we are 

 soon clear of the swamp, and still on and on we tear helter- 

 skelter. How we, who are unaccustomed to such work, con- 

 trive to stick on to our small pads, and also to balance a gun 

 across our knees, seems perfectly miraculous ; but one does 

 things in hot blood that one never dreams of being able to 

 do in cold. 



At last a nooser has managed to lay his elephant alongside 

 the hindermost wild one. She appears only to see the ele- 

 phant and not its rider, who, with ready noose, eagerly awaits 

 a favourable opportunity for casting it ; consequently she is 

 unaware of her real danger until she feels the rope on her 

 head. But now, with a shrill trumpet, she shoots swiftly on, 

 slipping away from under the noose with a lift of her trunk 

 and a toss of her head. Still her maternal solicitude causes 

 her again to check her speed, for her offspring is beside her, 

 and the phandete is once more up with her, and makes an- 

 other unsuccessful attempt to noose her. 



But the pace has been too severe to last, and some of our 

 elephants are showing decided symptoms that such is the 



