55 



majestic pace to join the princely retinue on state occasions: the 

 houdah sometimes contains two or three small apartments under a 

 dome supported by gilded pillars, for the chieftain and his attend- 

 ants. The elephant is extremely useful in other respects, and, 

 notwithstanding his enormous bulk and surprising strength, is very 

 docile and tractable. 



The largest elephants are from ten to eleven feet in height, 

 some are said to exceed it: the average is eight or nine feet. They 

 are fifty or sixty years before they arrive at their full growth; the 

 female goes with young eighteen months, and seldom produces 

 more than one at a birth, which she suckles until it is five years old: 

 its natural life is about an hundred and twenty } r ears. The Indians 

 are remarkably fond of these animals, especially when they have 

 been long in their service. I have seen an elephant valued at 

 twenty thousand rupees; the common price of a docile well-trained 

 elephant is five or six thousand; and in the countries where they 

 are indigenous, the Company contract for them at five hundred 

 rupees each, when they must be seven feet high at the shoulders. 

 The mode of catching and training the wild elephants is now well 

 known: their price increases with their merit during a course of 

 education. Some for their extrarordinary qualities become in a 

 manner invaluable; when these are purchased, no compensation 

 induces a wealthy owner to part with them. 



The skin of the elephant is generally a dark grey, sometimes 

 almost black; the face frequently painted with a variety of colours; 

 and the abundance and splendour of his trappings add much to 

 his consequence. The Mogul princes allowed five men and a boy 

 to take care of each elephant; the chief of them, called the ma- 



