As we came up, it was discovered that the elephant was blind of one eye; everyone commiserated the defeated gladiator; and Sir Jung Bahadur offered to let him go free should the Prince so desire. The Prince having accepted the suggestion, the elephant was led captive away and was secured with thick ropes to a {167} tree. He bent his vast strength to a last effort to escape, so that the tree creaked and shook under the strain. He cried aloud in despair, and then stood silent, refusing all food. They set him free upon the following day, having sawn off his great tusk; which was presented by Sir Jung Bahadur to the Prince. A few days before the great hunt took place in Nepal, Sir Jung Bahadur's regiment of elephants paraded before the Prince. They numbered more than 700, and were drilled to manoeuvre in companies to the sound of the bugle. After the hunt, the Prince reviewed Sir Jung's army: a corps which, as the message from the Queen delivered by the Prince recalled in gracious terms, had tendered valuable help to the British arms upon an important occasion. The total strength of the army was 114,000 infantry and 420 guns. The infantry, in addition to rifle and bayonet, carried the _kukri_, or curved knife, the national weapon. We witnessed an exhibition of its use by the soldiers, who vied with one another in cutting, with a single action, slices of soft wood from a baulk, the cut making a diagonal section. More by good luck than by merit, I succeeded in cutting the widest section; and perceiving it to be extremely improbable that I could repeat the performance, I refused the invitation to try again. Sir Jung Bahadur presented me with the _kukri_ I had used. I have the weapon now. With this weapon, I slew a boa-constrictor. Riding an elephant after tiger, on which occasion shooting at any other game was forbidden, I saw a boa-constrictor, and dismounted. The great snake was lying asleep, coiled in a hole in the ground and half hidden in foliage. Selecting a narrowing coil, I cut nearly through it. The snake darted at me, and I finished it with a stick. Although it was dead, its body continued to writhe until sunset. For a long time I kept the skin, but unfortunately it decomposed. My brother Lord William and I were out pig-sticking, and were riding after a boar. I got first spear, when the {168} boar knocked both me and my horse clean over. The boar went on, then turned, and as I was in the act of getting up, came right at me. Remembering what an old pig-sticker, Archie Hill, had told me a man should do if he were bowled over and a boar attacked him, I rolled over on my face, presenting my least vital aspect to the enemy. But my brother, cleverly turning his horse, killed the boar within a few feet of me. The beast's head is preserved at Curraghmore.