REVIEW, 111 



■of elepliants is a walk, slow or quick, at time increased to a sliuflfling 

 ran. They are incapable of any motion resembling a gallop or of 

 the least jump." Every man who is going to draw an elephant 

 and ought to learn these sentences by heart, albeit one is as incom- 

 plete the other as awkward as the elephant's * shuffling run.' Artists 

 usually draw elephants with hocks, and then reviewers correct 

 them and say that elephants '^ have no hocks." Arcades ambo. 



Tame elephants very rarely breed in India. A good observer told 

 the writer that he had witnessed their nuptials at Pauna in Bundel- 

 khand many years ago, which differed in no material point from 

 those of other quadrupeds. There ai^e other (some very old) autho- 

 rities for this, and mahout lies to the conti-ary ; now the mahout 

 is of all men the premier liar, and the close companionship of ele- 

 phants is, indeed, more corrupting than even that of the horse. 

 Whereof a tale of Bengal, — (Mr. Raikes's, we thiuk) Baxu, dealer 

 in elephants took several to a fair and sold all but one ; and around 

 this sole survivor there walked an uncommonly shrewd-looking 

 one-eyed Rajput stranger examining him closely. " Sir," said Baxu, 

 "I perceive that you are a judge of elephants. You are also my 

 father and m.other and a few other relations, — and what's more I see 

 the Raja of Dustypore's Diwan coming up to look at this elephanc, 

 and if he buys him, you shall have 50 rupees.'' The Diwan did buy 

 the elephant, and Baxu, who fancied that the stranger had detected 

 the 'screw loose' that had so long kept that elephant on his hands, 

 paid up, and said he, 'SSir, I thought I knew how to 'fake' a 

 screwed elephant if any man in Hindustan does, but you are my 

 master. How did you find him out ?'' "My brother," quoth the 

 judge of elephants, as he put a 'granny' knot on the rupees in his 

 sash, " the truth is that I never saw an elephant before, and I was 

 seeking to discover which end of the brute was his head, and which 

 was his tail." 



Our tale is at this end for the present. 



