The driver came up, and, after the usual volume of abuse on the elephant, his mother, father, and sundry female relations, he ordered the attendant to make him sit down that he might get on his neck.

He did so in fear and trembling, and the driver got on his neck, while the attendant sat on his back, and the elephant took them to Benee Madho's village, close to my camp, where he was fastened in chains to a tree, to remain for some months on reduced allowances, till he should get over his madness.

The body of the poor man was burnt with the usual ceremonies, and the first attendant told me, that his family would be provided for by Benee Madho, as a matter of course.
I asked him how he or any other person could be found to attend a beast of that kind?
Pointing to his stomach, he said--"We poor people are obliged to risk our lives for this, in all manner of ways; to attend elephants has been always my profession, and there is no other open to me; and we make up our minds to do whatever our duties require from us, and trust to Providence." He told me that when the elephant shoved him off, he thought that in his anger he might have forgotten him, and called out as loud as he could,--"What, have you forgotten a service of six years, and do you intend to kill the man who has fed you so long ?" That the beast seemed to recollect his voice and services, and became, at once, quiet and docile--"that had he not so called out, and reminded the animal of his long services, he thought he should have been killed; that the driver came, armed with a spear, and showed himself more angry than afraid, as the safest plan in such cases." Dangerous as the calling of the elephant-driver is, that of the snake-keepers, in the King's service, seems still greater.

He has two or three very expert men of this kind, whose duty it is to bring him the snakes, when disposed to look at them, and see the effects of their poison on animals.

They handle the most venomous, with apparently as much carelessness as other men handle fighting-cocks or quail.