"PEER BUX," THE TERROR OF HUNSUR. 



PEER Bux was the largest elephant in the Madras 

 Government Commissariat Department. He stood 

 nine feet six inches at the shoulder and more 

 than ten feet at the highest point of the convexity 

 of the backbone. His tusks protruded three and a 

 half feet and were massive and solid, with a slight 

 curve upwards and outwards. His trunk was large 

 and massive, while the skin was soft as velvet 

 and mottled red and white, as high-class elephants' 

 should be. His pillar-like fore legs were as straight 

 as a bee line from shoulder to foot, and showed 

 muscle enough for half-a-dozen elephants. Physi- 

 cally Peer Bux was the beau ideal of elephantine 

 beauty, a brute that should have fetched fifteen 

 thousand rupees in the market and be cheap at 

 that price, for was he not a grander elephant to 

 look at than many a beast that had cost its 

 princely owner double that sum ? He was quiet 

 too and docile, and could generally be driven by 

 a child. Yet with all his good qualities, with all 

 his majestic proportions, Peer Bux was tabooed by 

 the natives. No Hindoo would have him at a gift. 

 He was a marked beast ; his tail was bifurcated at 

 the extremity. This signified, said those natives 





