Mr. Perkes had kept up the
pace for fifteen miles, to Rambodd?, 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. Perkes had at some former time lost
an eye by the kick of a horse, and to conceal the disfigurement
he wore a black patch, which gave him very much the expression of
a bull terrier with a similar mark. Notwithstanding this
disadvantage in appearance, he was perpetually making successful
love to the maidservants, and he was altogether the most
incorrigible scamp that I ever met with, although I must do him
the justice to say he was thoroughly honest and industrious.
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