92 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA YS 
CHAP. 
of Lord Mayo, had luckily accompanied us with a 
spear, and although at the time I was unaware of 
his presence, he was exerting himself to the utmost 
in a vain endeavour to overtake our runaway 
elephant. At first I imagined that the great pace 
would soon be slackened, and that a couple of 
hundred yards would exhaust the animal’s wind, 
especially as the ground was slightly rising. Instead 
of this, it was going like a steam-engine, and if there 
had been the usual amount of thorny creepers we 
should have been torn to pieces. 
“ Keep him straight for the hill,” I shouted, as I 
saw we were approaching an inclination. “ Don’t 
let him turn to right or left, keep his head straight 
for the steep ground ; ” and the mahout, who had 
been yelling for assistance, and had lost both his 
turban and skull-cap, did all that he could by 
tunnelling into the brute’s head with his formidable 
hook to direct it straight up the hill. I never knew 
an elephant go at such a pace over rocky ground. 
Young trees were smashed down, some branches 
torn, others bent forward, which swung backwards 
with dangerous force, and yet on we tore without a 
sign of diminishing speed. How I longed for an 
anchor to have brought up our runaway ship head 
to wind! We had the coupling chains upon the 
pad, and my interpreter, Modar Bux, at length 
succeeded in releasing these, and in throwing them 
down for any person following to make use of. 
After a run of quite half a mile, we fortunately 
arrived at a really steep portion of the hill, where 
