The Rajah of Moochtagacha, Soochikhan (or Suchi Khan), had started from Mymensing with thirty-five elephants, and he kindly invited me to join him for a few days before I should meet Mr. Sanderson at Rohumari, about 38 miles below Dhubri, on the Brahmaputra. I had a scratch pack of twelve elephants, including some that had been sent forward from the keddahs, and others kindly lent by the Ranee of Bijni. These raised our number into a formidable line, excepting one huge male with long tusks belonging to the Bijni Ranee, who was too savage to be trusted with other elephants in company. This brute, as is not uncommon, combined great ferocity with extreme nervousness. He had just destroyed the howdah, which was smashed to atoms, as the animal had taken fright at the crackling of flames when some one had ignited a patch of long grass in the immediate neighbourhood. This had established an immediate panic, and the elephant bolted at full speed, destroying the howdah utterly beneath the branches of a tree; fortunately there was no occupant, or he would certainly have been killed. The sound of fire is most trying to the nerves of elephants, but a good shooting animal should be trained especially to bear with it; otherwise it is exceedingly dangerous. The Rajah's elephants were his peculiar enjoyment, and there was the same difference in their general appearance, when compared with the keddah elephants, as would be seen in a well-kept stable of hunters and a team of ordinary farm horses. At the same time it must be remembered that Suchi Khan's elephants did no work, but were kept solely for his amusement, while the keddah animals had been working hard in the Garo Hills for many months upon inferior food, engaged with their experienced superintendent Mr. Sanderson in catching wild elephants. Nevertheless there was a notable superiority in the Rajah's shikari animals, as they had been carefully trained to the sport of tiger-hunting; they marched with so easy a motion that a person could stand upright in the howdah, rifle in hand, without the necessity of holding the rail. They appeared to glide instead of swaying as they moved, and in that respect alone they exhibited immense superiority, the difficulty of shooting with a rifle from the back of an elephant in motion being extreme. Several of these elephants were so well trained that they showed no alarm when a tiger was on foot, at which time an elephant generally exhibits a tendency to nervousness, and cannot be kept motionless by his mahout.