very roughly indeed, the tale of the sacks
of Chitor.

Follows an interlude, for the study even of inaccurate history is
indigestible to many. There was an elephant at Chitor, to take birds of
passage up the hill, and she--she was fifty-one years old, and her name
was Gerowlia--came to the dak-bungalow for the Englishman. Let not the
word dak-bungalow deceive any man into believing that there is even
moderate comfort at Chitor. Gerowlia waited in the sunshine, and
chuckled to herself like a female pauper when she receives snuff. Her
_mahout_ said that he would go away for a drink of water. So he walked,
and walked, and walked, till he disappeared on the stone-strewn plains,
and the Englishman was left alone with Gerowlia, aged fifty-one. She had
been tied by the chain on her near hind leg to a pillar of the verandah;
but the string was coir, and more an emblem of authority than a means of
restraint. When she had thoroughly exhausted all the resources of the
country within range of her trunk, she ate up the string and began to
investigate the verandah. There was more coir string, and she ate it
all, while the carpenter, who was repairing the dak-bungalow, cursed her
and her ancestry from afar. About this time the Englishman was roused to
a knowledge of the business, for Gerowlia, having exhausted the string,
tried to come into the verandah. She had, most unwisely, been pampered
with biscuits an hour before. The carpenter stood on an outcrop of rock,
and said angrily: "See what damage your _hathi_ has done, Sahib."
"'Tisn't my _hathi_," said the Sahib, plaintively. "You ordered it,"
quoth he, "and it has been here ever so long, eating up everything." He
threw pieces of stone at Gerowlia, and went away. It is a terrible thing
to be left alone with an unshackled elephant, even though she be a
venerable spinster. Gerowlia moved round the dak-bungalow, blowing her
nose in a nervous and undecided manner, and presently found some more
string and thatch, which she ate. This was too much. The Englishman went
out and spoke to her. She opened her mouth and salaamed; meaning thereby
"biscuits." So long as she remained in this position she could do no
harm.

Imagine a boundless rock-strewn plain, broken here and there by low
hills, dominated by the rock of Chitor, and bisected by a single
metre-gauge railway track running into the Infinite, and unrelieved by
even a way-inspector's trolly. In the foreground put a brand-new
dak-bunga