APPENDIX. 455 



considerable time in the hot season. I would not reject an elephant, 

 otherwise suitable, merely because it had a slight film over the eye ; 

 for it is easily removed when attended to in time. But its presence 

 would of course lessen the value the animal would otherwise bear. 



Another very tender point in the elephant is the back. A highly- 

 arched back is very liable to get galled ; and such sores, when fairly 

 established, are exceedingly obstinate. Such a back will almost 

 always show traces of old sores about the ridge, and frequently tbey 

 are only healed over on the surface, leaving deep sinuses below ready 

 to break out on the slightest pressure. Such a back should be 

 avoided, and a flat back, showing as nearly as possible a straight 

 line from the withers to the croup, should be selected. Besides its 

 immunit}' from galling, such a back always carries a load, or the 

 howdah, well and steadily. 



The above are almost all the external points to which the atten- 

 tion of the purchaser requires to be directed. Old strains will some- 

 times affect the paces, but this can be seen at once. I have alluded, 

 in the text, to the points of build and carriage that should be looked 

 to in choosing an elephant. There is no critical test of the animal's 

 age. The ears are always a good deal split and frayed at the edges 

 in an old animal ; but so they sometimes are also in young ones. 

 The general appearance will, however, indicate the age sufficiently 

 well for practical purposes. The full size and development is attained 

 at from thirty-five to forty years, and from that age till about sixty, 

 the elephant is in the prime of life. It is desirable to buy an 

 elephant of full age if required for shooting, young animals being 

 nearly always timid and unenduring. A very old, or "aged," elephant 

 will be easily recognised by the loose, wrinkly state of the skin, deep 

 hollows above the eyes, and very deeply-cracked ears. I do not 

 think that the number of concentric rings in the ivory of the tusk 

 is a reliable criterion, though the natives talk a good deal about it. 



At the great Sonpiir fair, mentioned in the text, which is the 

 principal market for elephants, the elephants offered for sale are 

 usually the property either of landowners from the districts of 

 Bengal, or of Mahomedan dealers who move about between the 

 places where they are captured and the chief markets and native 

 courts. The former are much the safest to purchase, having generally 

 been purchased young by the landowner, and brought up among his 

 own people at his farm, with plentiful food and good treatment. It 

 is quite a part of their business this buying of youngsters, which 

 they prefer for their own riding, keeping them till of full size, and 

 selling them at a good round profit. The dealer's strings, on the 

 other hand, are too often made up of the halt and the blind. There 

 is no end to their tricks. A dangerous man-killer is reduced to 

 temporary harmlessness by a daily pill of opium and hemp. Kandi 

 sores are plugged, and Sajhan cracks " paid " with tow. Sore backs 

 are surface-healed ; and the animals are so bedizened with paint, and 



