4 1 8 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



personal assistant to the commissioner placed half 

 his at my disposal. 



De B. , the chief engineer, I liked very much. He 

 took a sensible view of things, and agreed with me 

 that nothing could be done to open out the country 

 without elephants. But just then there was scarcely 

 one of these useful animals to be got. The Bhootan 

 war had expended not only all the greater part of the 

 Government animals, but most of those requisitioned 

 from the zemindars had died. 



The commissariat promised us four elephants. 

 When they came, De B. was absent. I saw at once 

 that the beasts were useless, dying in fact. 



Two were in an advanced state of zurbad, and the 

 other two showed incipient signs of it. It is a very 

 catching disease, a form of dropsy. Once an elephant 

 has had it, even if he recovers, he is valueless, as he is 

 sure to be attacked with it again and die. So I took 

 it upon myself to send the two first back at once and 

 reported the state of the others. Now De B., a very 

 clever engineer, knew no more about elephants than 

 he knew of the inhabitants of Jupiter. I had had 

 them under me for thirteen years, and was fairly up 

 in all their ailments. Knowing how essential these 

 animals were to us, and how difficult they were to 

 obtain, he begged me not to return the other two, 

 but I urged that our department would only be 

 debited with their cost, as I did not think they could 

 survive a fortnight, and would not be fit for work, if 

 they recovered, for months. He said he must take 

 time to consider. He then left for Tezpore, and 

 wrote to me thence that, trusting to my knowledge 

 of the creatures, if I was still of opinion that they 



