420 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



being brought fainting back to camp. When I reached Mdtin, 

 I was again very ill. It was far hotter than in Laanigarh, 

 lying as it does in a low valley surrounded by hills. B. did 

 not rejoin me for the next eight days, and I had a very dreary 

 time of it indeed. There was abundance of game about, and 

 several cow elephants drank daily at a pool not a mile from 

 camp. Shooting females, or anything but old males, had been 

 prohibited by the Government, as there was an intention of 

 establishing a hhedda here to capture them alive. But there 

 was an old "rogue " about, who had killed several persons not 

 long before, and I sent some Bhumi&s out to search for him. 

 The second night after my arrival I was sleeping outside for 

 coolness, when I was rudely awakened, and sat up to listen to 

 the crashing and trumpeting of a herd of elephants on the 

 slope of the hill above the village. All night long, till within 

 a few hours of daybreak, they kept on breaking the bamboos 

 and crying shrilly at intervals. Our tame elephants were 

 very uneasy the whole time ; and I took the precaution of 

 securing them by additional ropes, and stationing people with 

 spears beside them to suppress any attempt at an emetite. In 

 the evening I went out to the place, and found the hill-side 

 completely levelled, bamboos torn down, crushed between 

 their teeth, and many of their young shoots eaten away, and 

 many trees of the Boswellia and other scantily rooted species 

 overthrown and stripped of the tender bark of their top 

 branches. The limit of their powers in overthrowing trees 

 appeared, however, to be confined to those of not more than 

 about eight inches in diameter,, and my experience with trained 

 tame elephants leads to a similar conclusion. Even these are 

 not torn up by the roots, but merely borne down by the appli- 

 cation of their full weight, by means of the forehead and one 

 foot, or, as the natives here assured me, of the stern. The tales 



