AN ELEPHANT CLERK 147 



Mahomedan. I am, alas ! too old to pig-stick, 

 and only a pig-sticker can presume to pass wild- 

 pig under review. I have shot pig in non-pig- 

 sticking districts, but I always felt as though I 

 had shot a fox. A wild-boar is reputed to be the 

 pluckiest thing living. 



A propos of boars, did you ever hear Lord 

 Bowen's definition of a bore ? A wild prig. 



The sagacity of the elephant is proverbial, but 

 it is not generally known that it is so great as to 

 enable him to discharge clerical duties : 



" A Settlement Officer hired an elephant named 

 Ram Parshad, for Rs. 40 monthly, to carry him 

 over a country so intersected with streams that 

 other means of conveyance were useless. But 

 the Financial Codes know nothing of elephants, and 

 Ram Parshad's hire would never have passed the 

 audit. So the Settlement Officer appointed Ram 

 Parshad as a clerk on Rs. 40 in a post that hap- 

 pened to be vacant, and Ram Parshad drew his 

 pay without objection, and no doubt earned it at 

 least as well as his brother clerks." 



The only large stags with which I am acquainted 

 are the barasingha (which means, I believe, twelve 

 points), a big animal with a fine head of from 

 eight to fourteen points; the sambhar, also a fine 

 stag with a good head of usually four to six 

 points; and the swamp-deer, whose body is large, 

 but whose head is relatively poor. 



But no stag-shooting in India is, in my opinion, 

 comparable with deer-stalking in Scotland. If 

 I am told that I know very little about the former, 

 my reply will be that with the exception of a few 

 officers in British regiments, practically no one 



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