What a quaint, genial old customer he looked, as he bowed and salaamed
to us from his elevated seat, his face beaming, and his little
bead-like eyes twinkling with pleasure. He was full of an adventure he
had as he came along. After crossing a brawling mountain-torrent, some
miles from our camp, they entered some dense kair jungle. The kair is
I believe a species of mimosa; it is a hard wood, growing in a thick
scrubby form, with small pointed leaves, a yellowish sort of flower,
and sharp thorns studding its branches; it is a favourite resort for
pig, and although it is difficult to beat on account of the thorns,
tigers are not unfrequently found among the gloomy recesses of a good
kair scrub.
As they entered this jungle, some of the men were loitering behind.
When the elephants had passed about halfway through, the men came
rushing up pell mell, with consternation on their faces, reporting
that a huge tiger had sprung out on them, and carried off one of their
number. The Major and the elephants hurried back, and met the man
limping along, bleeding from several scratches, and with a nasty bite
in his shoulder, but otherwise more frightened than hurt. The tiger
had simply knocked him down, stood over him for a minute, seized him
by the shoulder, and then dashed on through the scrub, leaving him
behind half dead with pain and fear.
It was most amusing to hear the fat little Major relate the story. He
went through all the by-play incident to the piece, and as he got
excited, stood right up on his narrow pad. His gesticulations were
most vehement, and as the elephant was rather unsteady, and his
footing to say the least precarious, he seemed every moment as if he
must topple over. The old warrior, however, was equal to the occasion;
without for an instant abating the vigour of his narrative, he would
clutch at the greasy, matted locks of his mahout, and steady himself,
while he volubly described incident after incident. As he warmed with
his subject, and tried to shew us how the tiger must have pounced on
the man, he would let go and use his hands in illustration; the old
elephant would give another heave, and the fat little man would make
another frantic grab at the patient mahout's hair. The whole scene was
most comical, and we were in convulsions of laughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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