Presently I descended the steps, strolled across the green, and pushed aside the bushes. There I beheld a lean native, all ribs and turban, busily engaged in baking his chupatties over a fire of sticks--a little wizened man, with a sharp cruel face, and close behind him stood a huge gaunt elephant, or rather the framework of one, for the animal was shockingly thin. Its poor backbone was as sharp as a razor; its skin hung in great wrinkles; its eye--an elephant’s eye is small and ugly--this beast’s eye gave expression to its whole body, and had a woful look of inarticulate misery, of almost desperate, human appeal. The mahout stood up and salaamed, and forthwith he and I began to converse--that is to say, we made frantic endeavours to understand one another--the ayah, whose curiosity had dragged her forth, now and then throwing in a missing word. “By my favour, it was the rajah’s state elephant; he had also three others; he sent them into the forest to feed and to rest, when he did not require them. This, Shere Bahadur (brave lion), was the great processional elephant, and had a superb cloth-of-gold canopy that covered him from head to tail.” (“Poor brute!” I said to myself, “otherwise he would be a terribly distressing spectacle.”) “Why is he so thin?” I demanded anxiously. “Because he is old,” was the ready answer, “more than one hundred years. He had been, so folk said, a war-elephant taken in battle. He was worth thousands and thousands of rupees once. He knew no fear, and no fatigue. Moreover, he was a great shikar elephant--many tigers had he faced”--and here the mahout proudly showed me the traces of some ancient scars--“even now the Sahib Log borrowed him as an honour.” “And what had he to eat?” I inquired. “More than he could swallow--twelve large chupatties twice a day--this size”--holding his skinny arms wide apart--“also ghoor, and sugar-cane, and spice.” I looked about. I saw no sign of anything but a few branches of neem tree, and the preparations for the mahout’s own meagre meal. “Hazoor, he has had his khana--he has dined like a prince,” reiterated the mahout. “Kuda ka Kussum,” that is to say, “so help me God.”