Three elephants were necessary.

There were two howdah elephants and one pack elephant, who was always lagging behind.
Through long aisles of magnificent trees they passed, across hot blistering deserts, dotted here and there by shrubs and stunted trees, in and out of gloomy defiles of flinty rock, over sluggish and swiftly flowing streams.

The days were hot, but the nights were bitter cold.
Sometimes a blue miasmic haze settled down, and the dry raspy hides of the elephants grew damp and they fretted at their chains.
Rao, the khidmutgar Kathlyn had hired in Calcutta, proved invaluable.
Without him she would never have succeeded in entering the strange country; for these wild-eyed Mohammedan mahouts (and it is pertinent to note that only Mohammedans are ever made mahouts, it being against the tenets of Hinduism to kill or ride anything that kills) scowled at her evilly.

They would have made way with her for an anna-piece.

Rao was a Mohammedan himself, so they listened and obeyed.
All this the first day and night out.