Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/223

 and gave him an hour's rest. The animal devoured branches of trees and shrubs, first having quenched his thirst at a neighboring pond. Sir Francis Cromarty did not complain of this halt. He was worn out. Mr. Fogg appeared as if he had just got out of bed.

"But he is made of iron!" said the brigadier general, looking at him with admiration.

"Of wrought iron," replied Passepartout, who was busy preparing a hasty breakfast.

At noon, the guide gave the signal for starting. The country soon assumed a very wild aspect. To the large forests there succeeded copses of tamarinds and dwarf palms, then vast, arid plains, bristling with scanty shrubs, and strewn with large blocks of syenites. All this part of upper Bundelcund, very little visited by travelers, is inhabited by a fanatical population, hardened in the most terrible practices of the Hindoo religion. The government of the English could not have been regularly established over a territory subject to the influence of the rajahs, whom it would have been difficult to reach in their inaccessible retreats in the Vindhias.

They were descending the last declivities of the Vindhias. Kiouni had resumed his rapid gait. Towards noon, the guide went round the village of Kallenger, situated on the Cani, one of the tributaries of the Ganges. He always avoided inhabited places, feeling himself safer in those desert, open stretches of country which mark the first depressions of the basin of the great river. Allahabad was not twelve miles to the northeast. Halt was made under a clump of banana trees, whose fruit, as healthy as bread, as succulent as cream," travelers say, was very much appreciated.

At two o'clock, the guide entered the shelter of a thick forest, which he had to traverse for a space of several miles. He preferred to travel thus under cover of the woods. At all events, up to this moment there had been no unpleasant meeting, and it seemed as if the journey would be accomplished without accident, when the elephant, showing some signs of uneasiness, suddenly stopped.

It was then four o'clock.

"What is the matter?" asked Sir Francis Cromarty, raising his head above his howdah.