One would suppose we were safe enough with more than a dozen attendants, but the natives are very timid, and a tiger's roar will set them flying. A lady at Dehra, the daughter of a missionary, told us how she was once carried with her mother and one or two other children in dooleys, when just at break of day a huge tiger walked out of a wood, and came right towards them, when the brave coolies at once dropped them and ran, leaving the mother and her children to their fate. Fortunately she had presence of mind to light a piece of matting, and throw it out to the brute, who either from that, or perhaps because he was too noble a beast to attack a woman, after eyeing them for some moments, deliberately walked away.
Such associations with the road we were travelling, gave an excitement to our night journey which was not the most composing to sleep. It is very well to sit by the fireside and talk about tigers, but I do not know of anybody who would care to meet one in the woods, unless well armed and on an elephant's back.
But what if a wild elephant should come out upon us? In general, I believe these are quiet and peaceable beasts, but they are subject to a kind of madness which makes them untamable. A "rogue elephant"--one who has been tamed, and afterwards goes back to his savage state--is one of the most dangerous of wild beasts. When the Prince of Wales was hunting in the Terai with Sir Jung Bahadoor, an alarm was given that a rogue elephant was coming, and they pushed the Prince up into a tree as quickly as possible, for the monster has no respect to majesty. Mrs. Woodside told me that they once had a servant who asked to go home to visit his friends. On his way he lay down at the foot of a tree, and fell asleep, when a rogue elephant came along, and took him up like a kitten, and crushed him in an instant, and threw him on the roadside.
The possibility of such an adventure was quite enough to keep our imagination in lively exercise. Our friends had told us that there was no danger with flaming torches, although we might perhaps hear a distant roar on the mountains, or an elephant breaking through the trees. We listened intently. When the men were moving on in silence, we strained our ears to catch any sound that might break the stillness of the forest. If a branch fell from a tree, it might be an elephant coming through the wood. If we could not see, we imagined forms gliding in the darkness. Even the shadows cast by the starlight took the shapes that we dreaded. Hush! there is a stealthy step over the fallen leaves. No, it is the wind whispering in the trees. Thus was it all night long. If any wild beasts glared on us out of the covert, our flaming torches kept them at a respectful distance. We did not hear the tramp of an elephant, the growl of a tiger, or even the cry of a jackal.