COMPARISON WITH OTHER ANIMALS 281 



verbial fish, who has been ruthlessly snatched by some 

 ardent angler from an element which is life itself to 

 him and thrown high and dry on to another which 

 means but death. It would, therefore, be needlessly 

 unfair to criticise and condemn him. He was misun- 

 derstood, consequently mismanaged. To get at his true 

 working capacity he must on no account be judged 

 from our past experiences of him, and yet it has no 

 doubt taught those who had their eyes open what his 

 real value is. 



Let us take a rapid glance at the eligibility of each 

 animal for military pack and draught transport, and 

 begin with the elephant. 



The elephant is up to great weight, from 2,000 Ib. The eie- 

 to a ton, but in spite of his great size and strength he r 

 is not well adapted for transport work, and should 

 never be used except under the most favourable con- 

 ditions. He requires good roads, abundance of food 

 and water (not only for drinking but for washing pur- 

 poses), and a temperate climate. He eats too much, 

 and is costly to maintain ; is very delicate, and highly 

 susceptible to climatic changes cannot stand cold, and 

 altogether requires a lot of mollicoddling. Lives, as a 

 rule, to a great age. In 1878, marching from Jacobabad 

 to Candahar, my company was escort to a heavy 

 battery, drawn by 11 elephants and 300 oxen. We 

 only lost one of the former within sight of Candahar, 

 too but this was due to the extreme care and attention 

 lavished on them by the officer in command, and the 

 amount of good things ' chapatties ' (cakes of unleavened 

 bread), rice, sugar and rum (a couple of bottles at a 

 time) given to them of an evening after a march. The 



