"
"They are simply under the influence of toddy and opium!" retorted
the irreverent Babu.
The lookers-on moved as in a dream, as if they all were only
half-awakened somnambulists; but the actors were simply victims
of St. Vitus's dance. One of them, a tall old man, a mere skeleton
with a long white beard, left the ring and begun whirling vertiginously,
with his arms spread like wings, and loudly grinding his long, wolf-
like teeth. He was painful and disgusting to look at. He soon fell
down, and was carelessly, almost mechanically, pushed aside by the
feet of the others still engaged in their demoniac performance.
All this was frightful enough, but many more horrors were in store
for us.
Waiting for the appearance of the prima donna of this forest opera
company, we sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, ready to ask
innumerable questions of our condescending host. But I was hardly
seated, when a feeling of indescribable astonishment and horror
made me shrink back.
I beheld the skull of a monstrous animal, the like of which I could
not find in my zoological reminiscences. This head was much larger
than the head of an elephant skeleton. And still it could not be
anything but an elephant, judging by the skillfully restored trunk,
which wound down to my feet like a gigantic black leech. But an
elephant has no horns, whereas this one had four of them! The
front pair stuck from the flat forehead slightly bending forward
and then spreading out; and the others had a wide base, like the
root of a deer's horn, that gradually decreased almost up to the
middle, and bore long branches enough to decorate a dozen ordinary
elks.
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