xlix 



at a rate of 3— 3i miles per lioiir and witliout halts ; they will not 

 be left far behind in a 10 to 15 miles march.* Although the ele- 

 phant is very sure-footed, round stones on smooth ground and 

 stony roads seriously incommode him. Yet it is familiar to any 

 one who has been among elephants with what facility he will walk 

 along the beds of streams even although there be many large and 

 sharp stones in the way, finding, somehow or other, means of 

 obtaining hold for his large feet. Dry nullahs and ditches prove 

 serious obstacles to the elephant for he cannot leap on account of 

 the perpendicular position of his limb bones and the smallness of 

 his hind-hand, a trench 8 feet wide and 8 feet deep is quite im- 

 passable to an elephant. The same conditions also account for 

 the liability of the elephant to fall backwards on ascending moun- 

 tains when bearing considerable loads, which he is sometimes 

 required to do in the emergencies of service ; " whenever they 

 fall under the immense burthen usually placed on their backs they 

 never rise again, even on a good road," says Bernior, who travelled 

 into Cashmere with Aurungzebe (" Travels in the Mogul Empire"). 

 He also relates a peculiar accident in the following terms : " The 

 king was followed by a long line of elephants,upon which sat ten 

 ladies, in mik-dembers and hauzes. The foremost, appalled, as 

 is supposed, by the great length and accliviiy of the great path 

 before him, stepped back upon the elephant that was moving in 

 his track ; who, again, pushed against the third elephant, the 

 third against the fourth, and so on until fifteen of them, incapable 

 of turning round or extricating themselves in a road so steep and 

 narrow, fell down the precipice." The absence a ligamentum 

 teres to the hip is an anatomical indication that the elephant is 

 best adapted for movement on level ground and also that he is 

 not fitted for draught purposes. Some varieties, notably that of 

 Nepaul, are better suited for mountain work, being larger behind 

 in proportion to the forehand than the others, even in hilly coun- 

 tries (as Abyssinia) elephants have done good military service. 



We have already noticed how persistently the elephant stands ; 

 this has been much exaggerated in early descriptions of the ani- 

 mal, perhaps in consequence of Master Will Shakspere having 



* On the line of march with Artillery in India the Elephants are not nn- 

 frerjiiently at the halting place before the Battery arrives. 



