A day in the
swamps entailed, too, a big dose of quinine at bedtime. Between
ourselves, I was terrified at the prospect of having to fire off the
heavy four-bore elephant-rifle. The "kick" of fourteen-and-a-half
drachms of black-powder is tremendous, and one's shoulder ached for
two hours afterwards, though I do not regret the "kick" in surveying
the water-buffalo which has hung now in my hall for thirty years. I
have only seen two wild rhinoceroses in my life, and of the first one
I had only a very brief glimpse. We were outside the swamp, when down
a jungle-track came a charging rhinoceros, his head down and an evil
look in his eye. One look was enough for Chota Begum. That most
respectable of old ladies had quite evidently no love for rhinos. She
lost her nerve completely, and ran away for two miles as hard as her
ungainly limbs could lay leg to the ground. It is no joke to be on a
runaway elephant maddened with fright, and it is extremely difficult
to keep one's seat. The mahout and I hung on with both hands for dear
life, the guns and rifles crashing together with a deafening clamour
of ironmongery, and I was most thankful that there were no trees
anywhere near, for the terrified animal's first impulse would have
been to knock off both howdah and mahout under the overhanging branch
of a tree.
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