“Oh! the elephant,” said I, “by all means. I have never ridden on one, and long to be on that noble fellow, who looks like a moving mountain.”
“Then,” said my kind-hearted host, “let us mount. I see they have put the guns in the howdah, and we may have a shot at something as we go along. I must give you a lesson in shooting off an elephant, which is no easy matter to a young hand. Here, hauthee laou (‘bring the elephant’).”
Another dig and another startling blast, and the leviathan was alongside of us.
“Buth! buth?” said the driver, and down knelt the docile beast to receive us.
The coolie, or attendant, now applied the ladder, to his side; Augustus ascended, and I followed him. Here, then, was one of my Oriental day-dreams realized, and I fairly boxed up on “the elephant and castle.”
’Tis a fine thing to be mounted on a gallant charger, to spurn the sod, and, catching all his fire, to feel yourself “every inch” a hero; or to dash away in a brave ship over the blue billows with a spanking breeze, as free as the winds that propel you; but I doubt if even they can impart such sensations as you experience when towering aloft on the back of an elephant, nine feet high, moving, with majestic and stately stride, through palmy scenes of orient beauty, you find yourself raised far above the humble pedestrian, and taking in the whole country as with an eagle glance.
We now started at a good, swinging pace, followed by the horses, whilst sundry burkundazes and peons, with spears and staves, trotted on nimbly before, clearing the way of the boys, cows, village pariar dogs, and idlers. Thus we wound through the village, and soon entered on the open country, which for the most part was perfectly flat, and bounded by villages and topes of mango trees. Here and there the land rose a little, forming a sort of rough pastures, on which herds of the black slouching buffaloes were feeding, mingled with small white Bengalee cows and bullocks, their bells tinkling, and tended by herdsmen enveloped in blanket sort of hoods, with long sticks over their shoulders.
We had not proceeded far on the plain, when a horseman appeared in the distance, approaching us at a hand gallop.
“Halloo!” said Augustus, “here comes my neighbour and brother planter, Mons. De la Chasse, as funny, but as good a fellow as ever breathed. I hope you have a tolerable command of countenance, for you’ll require it when you hear our friend’s English.”
By this time Mons. De la Chasse was sufficiently near for me to distinguish the Gaul in every lineament. He was a long and gaunt man, with the face of a vieux mousquetaire, wore a white solah hat, with a vast amplitude of brim, a white jacket, and long military boots. His horse was a large hatchet-faced animal, of a cream colour, with a swish tail, which, however, bore him along over bush and jungle in capital style. As he approached brandishing a hog-spear, he rather brought to my mind the picture of a Spanish bull fighter.