The most interesting sights of Nassik are its cave-temples, about five miles from the town. The day before we started thither, I certainly did not dream that a "tail" would have to play an important part in our visit to Nassik, that, in this case, it would save me, if not from death, at least from disagreeable and perhaps dangerous bruises. This is how it happened. As the difficult task of ascending a steep mountain lay before us, we decided to hire elephants. The best couple in the town was brought before us. Their owner assured us "that the Prince of Wales had ridden upon them and was very contented." To go there and back and have them in attendance the whole day--in fact the whole pleasure-trip--was to cost us two rupees for each elephant. Our native friends, accustomed from infancy to this way of riding, were not long in getting on the back of their elephant. They covered him like flies, with no predilection for this or that spot of his vast back. They held on by all kinds of strings and ropes, more with their toes than their fingers, and, on the whole, presented a picture of contentment and comfort. We Europeans had to use the lady elephant, as being the tamer of the two. On her back there were two little benches with sloping seats on both sides, and not the slightest prop for our backs. The wretched, undergrown youngsters seen in European circuses give no idea of the real size of this noble beast. The mahout, or driver, placed himself between the huge animal's ears whilst we gazed at the "perfected" seats ready for us with an uneasy feeling of distrust The mahout ordered his elephant to kneel, and it must be owned that in climbing on her back with the aid of a small ladder, I felt what the French call chair de poule. Our she-elephant answered to the poetical name of "Chanchuli Peri," the Active Fairy, and really was the most obedient and the merriest of all the representatives of her tribe that I have ever seen. Clinging to each other we at last gave the signal for departure, and the mahout goaded the right ear of the animal with an iron rod. First the elephant raised herself on her fore-legs, which movement tilted us all back, then she heavily rose on her hind ones, too, and we rolled forwards, threatening to upset the mahout. But this was not the end of our misfortunes. At the very first steps of Peri we slipped about in all directions, like quivering fragments of blancmange.