The carriage still lay inverted; and although a tolerable specimen of a smash, I determined to pay a certain honor to its remains by not allowing it to lie and rot upon the ground.
Accordingly, I sent the blacksmith with a gang of men, and Perkes was ordered to accompany the party.

I also sent the elephant to assist in battling the body of the carriage up the precipice.
Perkes, having been much more accustomed to riding than walking during his career as groom, was determined to ride the elephant down the pass; and he accordingly mounted, insisting at the same time that the mahout should put the animal into a trot.

In vain the man remonstrated, and explained that such a pace would injure the elephant on a journey; threats prevailed, and the beast was soon swinging along at full trot, forced on by the sharp driving-hook, with the delighted Perkes striding across its neck, riding, an imaginary race.
On the following day the elephant-driver appeared at the front door, but without the elephant.

I immediately foreboded some disaster, which was soon explained.

Mr.Perkes had kept up the pace for fifteen miles, to Rambodde, when, finding that the elephant was not required, he took a little refreshment in the shape of brandy and water, and then, to use his own expression, "tooled the old elephant along till he came to a standstill." He literally forced the poor beast up the steep pass for seven miles, till it fell down and shortly after died.
Mr.Perkes was becoming an expensive man: a most sagacious and tractable elephant was now added to his list of victims; and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was one of the few men in the world who had ridden an elephant to death.
That afternoon, Mr.Perkes was being wheeled about the bazaar in a wheelbarrow, insensibly drunk, by a brother emigrant, who was also considerably elevated.