"Your Humbel Servt, "H. PERKES."
This was pleasant, certainly - a new carriage and a pair of fine
Australian horses smashed before they reached Newera Ellia!
This was, however, the commencement of a chapter of accidents. I
went down the pass, and there, sure enough, I had a fine
bird's-eye view of the carriage 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 Amberpussé, 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 Ramboddé, 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:
