rriage down a precipice on the road side. One horse was so
injured that it was necessary to destroy him; the other died a few days
after. Perkes had been intoxicated; and, while driving at a full
gallop round a corner, over went the carriages and horses.

On my return to Newera Ellia, I found a letter informing me that the
short-horn cow had halted at Amberpusse, thirty-seven miles from
Colombo, dangerously ill. The next morning another letter informed me
that she was dead. This was a sad loss after the trouble of bringing
so fine an animal from England; and I regretted her far more than both
carriage and horses together, as my ideas for breeding some
thorough-bred stock were for the present extinguished.

There is nothing like one misfortune for breeding another; and what
with the loss of carriage, horses and cow, the string of accidents had
fairly commenced. 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 vi