THE INDIAN ELEPHANT 37 



trying to hit off the original tracks. 'That's 

 old.' ' No, I think it 's new.' ' It 's yesterday's 

 tracks.' 'It's last night's,' and so forth. This 

 goes on for some hours, during which you have, 

 perhaps, covered three miles of country. Pre- 

 sently, seeing that matters look pretty hopeless, 

 you say, ' Can't you find the tracks ? ' And 

 you are then told, ' No, we can't follow them — 

 they have got mixed up with others — many 

 elephants have gone this way,' and back you 

 trudge to camp, anathematising under your 

 breath the Burman and his annoying little ways. 

 This sort of thing will happen over and over 

 again with indifferent trackers under circum- 

 stances in which a good tracker would have little 

 difficulty in picking out the tracks. Of course, 

 in really hard, dry weather the best trackers can 

 do little ; but such men will follow tracks over all 

 kinds of soil as long as the ground is sufficiently 

 damp to leave the faintest possible impression 

 of the animal's footprints. Such trackers are 

 rare, in Burma at all events, and in most cases 

 the sportsman will have to rely on the local 

 moksoh or shikari, who is often merely a coolie, 

 and has probably never seen big game at close 

 quarters. It is, however, consoling to know that 

 nearly every Burman in the remoter villages can 

 track after a fashion, that is to say, infinitely better 

 than most Europeans. Given heavy rain over- 

 night, your village tracker will certainly bring 



