THE ' TIGER. 289 



plucky elephant is often rendered bolder than before by such 

 an occurrence. 



Some elephants which are in other respects perfect shikdris 

 will retain some ineradicable peculiarity which may almost 

 unfit them for use in hunting. For some time I had a female 

 who would stand anything in the way of animals (I once had her 

 charged close up by a whole family of bears a terrible trial 

 for any elephant), but who bolted invariably in the utmost 

 panic from the loud shout of a human voice. On one such 

 occasion she carried a cargo of native clerks into the middle 

 of a deep river, and left them to swim for their lives. On 

 another, I thought I should die of laughing, though her prank 

 nearly ended in the death of an unhappy Gond. He had been 

 taken out with her by the attendant whose business it is to 

 cut branches of trees for fodder, and was left on her back to 

 pack the load, while the other went up the tree to cut down 

 branches. In the meantime a loud shout in the neighbour- 

 hood sent her off at full speed for camp, and, a deep weedy 

 tank lying in the way, she marched right into it, and began 

 to surge up and down in the water, her unwilling rider 

 piteously screaming at every plunge. He was half drowned 

 and nearly finished with fright before we could release 

 him by sending in two other elephants with their drivers, 

 who drove her with their spears into a corner and secured 

 her. 



The keeping of an elephant is very costly at the present 

 prices of the wheaten flour on which they are chiefly fed, 

 coming in Central India to about 80 or 90 a year. Few 

 people do so, therefore, though, it is far more satisfactory if 

 one is pretty constantly in the jungles. The Government has, 

 however, great numbers of elephants, many of them trained 

 shikaris ; and there is seldom much difficulty in obtaining the 



