“But you must not interrupt, Junkie.”
“No, I won’t do it again; but first, tell me, is it true?”
“Yes, my boy; it is absolutely true in all its main points,” replied Jackman.
“Well, as I said, once upon a time, not very long ago, I was sent up to the North-west provinces of India, to a place near the base of the Himalaya mountain-range. The country was swarming with elephants at that time. You see, previous to that, the elephants had been hunted and killed to such an extent that the Government had been obliged to pass an Elephant Preservation Act for their protection, and the Act worked so well that the elephants multiplied very fast. They roamed at will through the forests, and frequently, leaving these, made raids upon the cultivated lands, to the great damage of property and danger of human life from the ‘rogues,’ as old, solitary elephants which have been driven from the herds, are called. These ‘rogues’ are extremely ill-natured and dangerous, so it was found necessary to take steps to kill some of them, and thin the herds by capturing some of the females, which might be tamed and made useful.
“For this purpose of hunting and catching elephants a hunt upon a truly magnificent scale was instituted. Now, as it is very difficult to kill such huge creatures, and still more difficult to catch them, men are obliged to call to their aid tame elephants, which are trained for the purpose of what is called Khedda hunting. But I don’t mean to tell you either about the killing or catching just now. I shall rather relate an extraordinary and thrilling incident that occurred before the hunt had properly begun.
“Great men from all parts of the country assembled at this hunt, some of them bringing troops of tame elephants and followers with them. There were governors and rajahs, and private secretaries, with some of their wives, military officers, forest officers, commissioners, collectors, superintendents, magistrates, surgeons, medical officers, and even clergymen, besides a host of smaller fry and servants. It was a regular army! The Maharajah of Bulrampore sent sixty-five catching elephants, and five koonkies or fighting elephants, among which was a famous warrior named Chand Moorut. Along with these came a body of men trained to that special work. A good contingent also came from Rampore. The Rajah of Khyrigarh came in person with thirteen elephants and a noted fighting animal, named Berchir Bahadur; other elephants were collected from the rajahs and native gentlemen around. Among the koonkies, or gladiators, were two tremendous fellows, both as to colossal size and courage, named respectively Raj Mungul and Isri Pershad.
“But far before them all in towering height and stupendous weight and unconquerable courage, as well as warlike tendency, was the mighty Chand Moorut, whom I first mentioned. This grand, slow-moving, sedate hero of a hundred fights, was a sort of elephantine bull-dog; a concentrated earthquake; an animal thunder-bolt; a suppressed volcano. Nothing in the forests had yet been found which could stand before his onset. And when we saw him stalk solemnly into camp with his mahowt, or guide, looking like a small monkey on his great neck, and remembered his fame as a fighter and his eager thirst at all times for battle, we felt that the keystone had been put to the arch of our arrangements.
“This great mixed multitude was put under the direction of a Conservator of Forests, a man celebrated for his exploits and daring adventures in the field, and it was as a friend of his that I joined the hunt with my man, Pat Quin there.”
“Troth, sor, an’ av it wasn’t for Chand Moorut (blissin’s on his great sowl, av he has wan, an’ on his body av he hasn’t) your man Pat Quin would have been left there as flat as a pancake. Excuse me, sor, for spakin’, but me feelin’s overcomed me.”
“No doubt, Quin, you had a narrow escape; I’ll come to that soon. Well, the spot at last chosen for pitching the camp was a splendid one, facing northward, where we had an extensive view of the great forests that stretched to the base of the irregular and rugged Sawalick hills. Behind these rose the mighty Himalayas themselves, their grand peaks seeming to push up into the very heavens, where the sun shone with dazzling brilliancy on their everlasting snows. The camp covered an immense piece of ground, which was partly open and partly dotted with clumps of trees. It was so large that the tents, etcetera, were arranged in streets, and our Director pitched his tent in the very centre of it, with all the tame elephants and their attendants around him.