Storia do Mogor 263.2.2

263.2.2

One day, coming from the palace, I passed through a street, where I saw many elephants collected before the door of Momencan (Mumin Khan), the official in charge of them. He was seated at the door of his mansion, and seeing me, called to me. I got down from my horse and walked between the elephants, which stood very close to each other. Near the door the space was very narrow, and I could hardly pass. I put my hand on the trunk of a small female elephant to make it give way. It could not move aside, and without my imagining such a thing, it suddenly put its trunk between my legs and deposited me lightly in a shop close by, which was full of gurguris (pottery pipe-heads), from which the Mahomedans smoke tobacco, and as I subsided I heard a great disturbance of cooking-pots, gurguris, and other crockery; though put out at finding myself in such a state, without any turban on my head, I was not hurt in any way. The female elephant put her trunk into her mouth and trumpeted loudly. This was to show she was in fault, but that the crowded position in which she found herself had forced her to take such a course [148].