A DANGEROUS POSITION. 155 



the kheddahs of mahouts being killed through timid tame elephants giving 

 way under the pain and sinking down, when, if the driver has been thrown 

 off, the wild ones have trampled him to death. This is, however, very 

 uncommon, and few wild female elephants offer any resistance to the 

 tame ones. Such a case as the attack upon me has never, as far as I can 

 learn from mahouts who have seen hundreds of elephants caught, been 

 known. It is an astonishing fact that the rider is hardly ever attacked. 

 The mahouts use no concealment, going mounted into the stockade in their 

 ordinary dress, and though their elephants may be surrounded by wild ones, 

 any of which could by simply raising its trunk drag the men off, they are 

 never molested. If it were otherwise, entering the stockade would be more 

 dangerous work than it is. However, in my case the solitary exception I 

 have known to the rule occurred. 



After boring for a second or two on my thigh, and upon Eadhapeary's head, 

 the elephant drew back, and I sat upright, thankful at escaping with a mere 

 pummelling, when, almost before I became aware of her intention, the fiend 

 came straight at me again. Over I went, only leaving my leg across the 

 elephant's neck, and again I was severely bruised ; the driving-hook was 

 jerked out of my hand, and had it not been fastened by a cord to the ele- 

 phant's neck-rope I should have lost it. Again I recovered myself, when 

 the elephant came at me once more, pummelled my leg soundly, and drew 

 blood from Eadhapeary's head. 



When I sat up my breeches and flannel shirt had been torn almost to 

 rags, and I believed my left thigh was broken, as it might well have been by 

 the weight of the elephant's jaws. I had hardly a moment's time for thought, 

 however ; there was the determined beast but a few feet off, and I saw she 

 was going to renew the attack. Her pertinacity was wonderful. I felt 

 that I was doomed. I could not expect to escape many more such assaults. 

 I should be unseated, when certain death awaited me as I was in the midst 

 of the crowd of wild elephants. I felt perfectly cool, however, as long as I 

 faced the danger and was engaged in defending myself I calculated the 

 chances against myself without a shudder. Most persons who have been in 

 similar dangerous positions doubtless have felt this calmness, and I believe 

 that men are often spared the bitterness which we are wont to associate with 

 violent deaths when they are overtaken whilst facing a danger which their 

 minds are engaged in resisting. Dr Livingstone mentions the same feeling 

 when he was in the jaws of a lion. Who can doubt the difference between 

 death to a man in action, and to a helpless prisoner ? 



I clutched the goad again. Forward went the elephant's ears and she 

 was already in her stride, when a spear passed my head and stabbed her 



