Being quite unable to maintain any position for two moments together, I
looked upon it as a miracle that every bone in my body was not broken.
Sometimes I was suddenly jerked into a sitting posture, and, not being
able to get my heels from under me in time, they received a violent blow.
A moment after I was thrown forward on my face, only righting myself in
time to see a huge impending branch, which I had to escape by slipping
rapidly down the crupper, taking all the skin off my toes in so doing,
and, what would have been more serious, the branch nearly taking my head
off if I did not stoop low enough. When I could look about me, the scene
was most extraordinary and indescribable: a hundred elephants were
tearing through the jungle as rapidly as their unwieldy forms would let
them, crushing down the heavy jungle in their headlong career, while
their riders were gesticulating violently, each man punishing his
elephant, or making a bolster of himself as he flung his body on one side
or the other to avoid branches; while some, Ducrow-like, and confident in
their activity, were standing on the bare backs of their elephants,
holding only by the looped rope,--a feat I found easy enough in the open
country, but fearfully dangerous in the jungle. A few yards in front of
us was a wild elephant with her young one, both going away in fine style,
the pace being 8 or 9 miles an hour. I was just beginning to appreciate
the sport, and was contemplating hammering my elephant so as to be up
amongst the foremost, when we, in company with about half a dozen others,
suddenly disappeared from the scene. A nullah, or deep drain, hidden in
the long grass, had engulfed elephants and riders. The suddenness of the
shock unseated me, but fortunately I did not lose my hold of the rope,
and more fortunately still my elephant did not roll over, but, balancing
himself on his knees, with the assistance of his trunk, made a violent
effort, and succeeded in getting out of his uncomfortable position.

The main body of the chace had escaped this nullah by going round the top