side, and simultaneously came upon a Shan caravan-
moving towards us. The elephants trumpeted with
fear and swung round in their tracks,' the bullocks
of the. caravan dashed in scattered groups into the
jungle, whence, they surveyed us with eyes of fear
bells jangled, the; cara-yan-men shouted in dismay, and
the only progress we made was towards May-wine as
the elephants shuffled along the hillside like a pair
of nervous pantaloons.
The caravan was at last got out of the way, and
the elephants were bullied and coaxed into facing the
slippery fragment of road,xyvhich they did with immense
circumspection, leaning heavily against the hillside,,
using their trunks-for support, and making certain
of the safe lodgment of three feet, before adventuring
the fourth.
Once before I had been placed in a similar, but
rather worse, predicament. I was making my way up
the Shan plateau, from the railway at Pyinmana to
the site of a projected sanatorium at Byingyi, six
thousand feet above the sea. The path was barely
five feet wide and in bad repair—a mere scratch on
the hillside, which climbed in a steep slope on one side
of it, and descended in; precipices on the other to the
bed of the valley. Twenty yards ahead, my elephant,
filling the entire road, was taking his ponderous and
stately way ; behind him I rode on my small (Burmese
pony. For two hours or more we had been marching
in this 'fashion, climbing foot by foot to the summit
of Byingyi. Then, of a sudden, a mad trumpeting
704
filled the air, and in a flash Leviathan swung round
and came thundering down the narrow track. My
pony turned and fled before him. For a mile or
more this pursuit
continued, the elephant
shrieking
with fear, his driver
clutching at the
iron goad he had
succeeded in inserting
into his skull,
and calling anathemas
upon every
relative of the great
beast he could
name. At last the
pace slackened, and
the whole breathless
party of us
came to a stand.
The elephant, not
y e t reas sured,
twitched all over r a f t m a n a t m a y -w in e
with fear, distracted
between the fiend upon his back and the fiend he had
not dared to face.
I called upon the driver for an explanation.
“ Sir,” he replied, “ the accursed beast—may his
mother be dishonoured and his sister put to shame—
the accursed beast took fright at a wasp.”
VOL 11. 70S u