A DEAD DOG'S DOINGS. 125 



windows being closed it was rather distressing. "When the river had run 

 itself down to summer level it became almost stagnant, except for the flow of 

 the tides. I well remember this from a dead pariah-dog making trips up 

 and down with the flow and ebb for a day or two. Each time it passed 

 there was a visible change for the worse. It looked larger than when last 

 seen, and floated more jauntily high out of the water ; nor was its colour 

 improved by the loss of patches of hair. At last, after one or two unsuc- 

 cessful attempts, I sent a bullet through it at a liundred and fifty yards, and 

 put a stop to its ghastly trips. 



Dacca is a populous native city (70,000 inhabitants) and a large and 

 favourite civil station. A wing of a native regiment is quartered here. 

 It was a place of great importance under the Moguls, but its former glory 

 has in a great measure departed. Dacca used to be famous for its ship- 

 building, and its fleet of eight hundred armed vessels, employed in guarding 

 the southern coast against the ravages of Arracanese pirates. It was widely 

 celebrated for its manufactures, amongst which muslin of incomparable fine- 

 ness was one of the most noted. This is now difficult to procure. The best 

 is only made to order, and costs about £1 per yard. A piece I had of twenty 

 yards, and average width, weighed, if I remember rightly, six rupees (twelve 

 shillings in silver). The native silver filigree work, in European designs, 

 is superior to anything of its kind of English or Continental manufacture. 

 A large trade is carried on in armlets for native women, cut from shells, 

 brought by the native trading-boats to Dacca from the coast of Ceylon and 

 other places. The cutting is effected with a huge semi-cii'cular knife like a 

 cheese-cutter, worked with both hands. A small circular-saw would do as 

 much in an hour as twenty men in a day. 



Dacca is the headquarters of the Bengal Kheddah, or Elephant-Catching 

 Establishment. Its situation on a branch of the Ganges from which large 

 supplies of water-grasses, suitable for fodder, are obtainable, and within two 

 hundred miles of the forests of Chittagong, Sylhet, and Cachar, which 

 abound with wild elephants, is perhaps the best for the purpose in Bengal. 

 The Peelkhana, or elephant depot, is situated just outside the town, and 

 covers an area approaching one quarter-nule square. It consists of an 

 intrenched quadrangular piece of ground in which the elephants' pickets are 

 arranged in long rows. At each picket is a masonry flooring, with a post 

 at the head and foot, to which the animals are secured. The flooring is 

 necessary to prevent them kicking up the earth. Along one side of the 

 quadrangle is a shed several hundred feet long, in which the elephants can 

 be kept during the heat of the day. There is also a hospital for sick ele- 

 phants ; houses for gear and stores ; a native doctor's room for treating the 



