No idea of any Indian or Colonial gentleman wearing a howdah pistol like a cowboy. Never seen or read anything remotely like it.

The "howdah" pistols were a weapon to be used in the howdah, which is an elephant saddle. Often with a platform. The platform might be a seat, a box and a seat or just a box perhaps with a floor. The latter one knelt or sat on the box floor.

One of our members says a defining mark of a howdah is the hook or loop on the howdah pistols grip base. For a lanyard attaching it to the howdah saddle. I don't know if this is correct or not. And could well be true, ie the hook/loop. I do think a pistol hanging on a howdah saddle would be very annoying and would hang and bump continuously with the rocking motion that exists high up on an elephants back. I think an in situ holster would be more likely.

However I do picture the holster as not being full length, with the barrel ends exposed and the grip being pretty much exposed as well for easy access. There isn't much chance of rubbish getting into the muzzles on a downward facing in place howdah saddle holster. And far less moisture potential if the holster tip is open and airy.

Giving it some thought, when sitting on a howdah, any belt holster is also harder to get to, potentially anyway, with the body being bent sitting, or kneeling. A holster on the side of the platform is only a hand away.

I would rely on anything, much at all, being historically accurate in the "Ghost and Darkness" movie. Except for two maneater lions, the name Tsavo, a railway, a bridge, Indian coolies and an engineer named Patterson. That is about it. No mention of any howdah pistol in the book at all. And definitely not the ridiculous "Remington" character invented by Douglas to give him a "hero" character. The main commercial reason was to have an American character in a British East African historical story. Movies with an American character sell better in the USA.

Oh yes the strange cave filled with bones IS historically accurate. Believed by anthropologists to be a burial cave, rather than a place the lions took victims to. And a reason for the maneating lions, the native practice of leaving the dead in the bush outside a village to be eaten.

There were more than two maneating lions along the EA railway works. These two were infamous though at Tsavo.

It would be interesting to know REAL historical facts about howdah pistols, holsters etc. Rather than conjecture. The leather may well have rotted away over the hundred or two hundred years of any original.