ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 143 



CHAPTER XIII 



Elephantiasis — Guinea-worm — Rainfall — Showers of fish — An exceptional 

 season — An uninvited guest — Panthers in The Wynad — Pony and 

 panther — Commotion in kennel — Helmet bird — Strange dishes. 



Elephantiasis is supposed to be a form of leprosy, though 

 of a different aspect, and unaccompanied by any pain ; 

 but it is, in fact, hardly less dreadful, for the person afflicted 

 with it cannot move about much more freely. The affected 

 limb, generally a leg, puts on a diseased growth of the skin, 

 and gradually becomes enormously thick, till at length it 

 assumes the very size and appearance of an elephant's leg 

 from the toes upwards ; hence the name. The knee and 

 ankle joints can still be bent very slightly in moving, but 

 neither ankle nor instep are discernible ; the toes grow to 

 be exactly like those of an elephant, with the nails turning 

 downwards ; the limb slowly but surely takes on the self- 

 same colouring, a dark ash occasionally pink and blotchy, 

 and the surface becomes hard and corrugated till the very 

 counterpart of an elephant's leg is presented to the eye. 



A servant of ours — one of the best — had such a leg and 

 foot. When we were engaging him he asked if there were 

 children to be attended to, or stairs in our house, as if either 

 were so he was not fitted for the work. Neither being the 

 case, and we unlikely to change our house, he entered our 

 service as butler. Beyond a slowness in walking, owing to 

 the awful weight he carried, there was little difference to 

 be noticed between him and another. This weight, he 

 told us, sometimes tried him, and caused a general feeling 

 of uneasiness in that limb, but he had become used to it, 



