40 ZOOLOGY OF INDIA. 



had been previously accustomed to, has yet been unsubjected 

 to accurate measurement, for our astonishment magnifies 

 its actual size. Thus a celebrated elephant belonging to the 

 Nabob of Dacca, which was generally said to be fourteen 

 feet high, and which even Mr. Scott's practised eye estimated 

 at twelve, was found by measurement not to exceed ten 

 feet. Those from Pegu and Ava are, however, larger than 

 the elephants of Hindostan, and the Ceylonese variety 

 is also of great dimensions. The skeleton of an individual 

 in the museum at Petersburg, which was presented by 

 the King of Persia to the Czar Peter, measures sixteen feet 

 and a half in height ; but we are uncertain how much of 

 this prodigious stature may be owing to the mode in which 

 the bones have been articulated, and the more or less nat- 

 ural curvature of the spine. 



A large elephant weighs from six to seven thousand 

 pounds, and we may easily conceive that when journeying 

 through the forests, with any very special object in view, 

 he must force his way through all intervening obstacles, 

 more after the manner of a steam-engine than of any mere 

 animal force of which we have a clear and accustomed con- 

 ception. 



"Trampling his path through wood and brake 

 ^nd canes which crackling fall before his way, 

 •And lassel-grass, whose silvery feathers play, 

 O'ertopping the young trees, 

 On comes the elephant, to slake 

 His thirst at noon in yon pellucid springs. 

 Lo! from his trunk upturn'd, aloft he flings 

 The grateful shower : and now, 

 Plucking the broad-leav'd bough 

 Of yonder plume, with waving motion slow, 

 Fanning the languid air, 

 He waves it to and fro."* 



The new-born elephant measures about thirty-five inches 

 high ; he grows about eleven inches during the first year ; 

 eight in the second ; five in the fifth ; three and a half in 

 the sixth ; and two and a half in the seventh. He takes 

 from twenty to thirty years to attain his full growth. 



It has been said that the invention of gunpowder in the 

 practice of war, and the application of steam to machinery, 



* Curse of Kehama. 



