MANAGEMENT OF TEAK FORESTS. 17 



The Mahouts are very fond of giving raw rice or paddy Elephants' food. 

 to elephants, the result is that much is stolen, and much 

 passes through the animal undigested. To obviate this, 

 there are two courses one is the Burmah custom of giving 

 baked cakes of rice, the other, the one I always pursued in 

 the forest, WHS to damp the paddy for three days till it 

 germinated exactly as barley is malted for beer. I found 

 my elephants kept in better condition on thirty pounds 

 of dry paddy, treated in this way than on forty pounds given 

 unmalted. Mahouts are very fon^i of asking for massala for 

 elephants and of doctoring them, some of them are skilful 

 in curing wounds of the feet, or sores on the back and 

 shoulders. Elephants are subject to worms, and frequently 

 eat mud as the Mahouts phrase is < ' MutteekMia hei"i\}Q Medicinal as well 

 fact is the elephant delights in a salt lick, quite as much as forworm3 - 

 a deer, and should have salt in his food frequently, the 

 Mahouts never give it if they can help it. They prefer that 

 their elephants should be laid up for two or three days after This is natural 

 eating mud. In wet weather elephants should have massala, wh ^ a they eat 

 and if possible be kept under cover at night. 



Male elephants should be worked regularly, or when old, Must in elephants, 

 they are certain to get Must, and every succeeding fit, is treatmenb of 

 worse than the last, until they become quite useless ; to pre- 

 vent this, regular work, with a diminution of food, has a 

 good effect. In dragging timber, rollers are rarely used, 

 but in some places, they are of immense use saving the 

 elephant and rendering the transport of huge beams pos- 

 sible. I have seen three elephants harnessed to a log, and 

 unable to move it, simply because rollers were not used. A Rollers for 

 powerful elephant will drag fifty cubic feet of timber over dra *sing- 

 level ground, but when it comes to dragging over hills and 

 swamps, he cannot manage more than thirty feet, and even 

 that with difficulty. In fact Mahouts should be cautioned 

 not to strain their charges up steep hills or down them. 

 A Commissariat male, I was once working, in going down a 

 hill, the beam took a suddeu slide between his legs, after 

 that he became frightened and refused to do a stroke of 

 work. I never could make out if it was not a trick of the 



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