It was dark as night even in the daytime.
There were monkeys overhead and snakes beneath, and bananas were so
plentiful that every time my elephant knocked against a tree a shower
of fruit fell down like hail and tickled its skin."
"You were on an elephant, then?"
"We were all on elephants. On my particular elephant there was a man
to load for me and a man to guide the beast. We moved slowly and
cautiously. It was dark, as I said, but the showers of falling bananas
made yellow streaks against the black that the elephant constantly
mistook for tigers flying through the air as they leaped in silent
fury against the howdah in which we crouched upon his back. The
howdah, you know, is the saddle."
"Was the elephant friendly?"
"_Very_ friendly indeed; but he found it difficult to see, and all of
a sudden he would give a hop and a jump that nearly flung me off his
shoulders. For a long time--"
"That was the bananas tickling him, I suppose?"
"This continued without anything dangerous happening, but all at once
he gave a tremendous leap into the air, lifted his trunk, trumpeted
like an Army bugle, and then set off at full speed through the tangled
jungle.
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