50 SPORT IN ASIA AND AFRICA 



elephant is an important prize. Broadly speaking, 

 the value of an elephant in India increases in 

 proportion to his size ; and a male elephant, 

 when captured young, does not attain his full 

 natural development in captivity. I had heard 

 the elephant breaking trees in the forest a day 

 or two before the arrival of the Kheddah, but 

 had not given the matter any attention. The 

 shooting of elephants in India, unless they are 

 rogues, is not permitted. 



A more favourable place for an exhibition 

 hunt could not possibly have been found. The 

 forest rest-house, at which I was staying, was 

 situated in a large clearing between the river on 

 the north and the sal forest on the south. 

 Parallel to the clearing, and at no great distance 

 from it, a line of low hills ran through the forest, 

 and the elephant was in the strip of sal forest 

 between the clearing and the hills. Mr. Millward, 

 the Divisional Forest Officer, who was on tour 

 in the neighbourhood, came to the rest-house 

 on the day that the Kheddah arrived, and very 

 kindly gave me a mount on his riding- elephant 

 NelUe, to enable me to see the hunt. Both 

 Millward and I naturally wished to accompany 

 the trained females, which were to run the wild 

 elephant down; but Nanneh Khan at first made 

 some demur to this. Eventually, however, he 

 yielded to Millward' s insistence, and in the 

 morning we moved off with the hunters to the 

 western end of the clearing to take part in 

 the drive. The fighting-elephants were massed, 

 under the command of Nanneh Khan, at the 

 eastern end of the clearing. From the clearing 



