Excursion to Vellore. 447 



like the minister himself, was reduced to eat the bread of 

 charity. His enormous tusks were sawn half off, for which 

 his attendant assigned the singular reason that the tusks 

 of an elephant must be cut, just as we pair our nails ! This 

 pensioner-elephant, however, seemed to find himself in very 

 good quarters, and was a carefully-tended gentle creature, 

 who carried about his chain with his proboscis, and knelt 

 down at the word of command. 



Among the other spacious apartments of this deserted 

 palace was the banquetting hall, as it is called, which was 

 represented by various writers as one of the largest rooms 

 in the world, which, however, is a transparent fallacy. It 

 is hard to believe that above a thousand persons could find 

 room in it. At the period of our visit this apartment 

 was used as a barrack for the English troops, in consequence 

 of which the splendid full-length pictures already mentioned 

 were carefully covered. One of the soldiers, anxious to 

 show them to us, tore away the covering of one before we 

 could interfere, when we found it to be a splendid likeness, 

 painted in London, of Sir Thomas Monroe, a former governor 

 of Madras. 



In the first few days of our stay in Madras, we made 

 an excursion to the fort of Vellore, distant about 80 miles 

 (English) from Madras, formerly a renowned native fort, 

 which is now reached in a few hours by rail. This line 

 passes through a flat uninteresting country, which is barely 

 relieved here and there by a couple of solitary palms or 



