WORK AND SPORT IN THE N.W.P. 69 
to ride up to it on a tame elephant, unless this be a 
very speedy one ; the safest is to go on foot, if the 
ground is at all steep, for an elephant cannot run 
quickly across a slope, nor can he climb a perpen- 
dicular bank of six feet high without breaking for 
himself an easier gradient ; but he can come down- 
hill like a tornado, and will slide down a bank that 
a man would have to be careful in negotiating, by 
the simple method of kneeling on his hind-legs and 
letting himself go. The large males are nearly 
always some distance behind the herd, but keep to 
its track ; they frequently use the main roads at 
night, possibly to shorten the longer route taken 
more leisurely by the mothers and young ones to 
their new feeding-ground, and this habit is often a 
source of trouble to the forester’s camp when march- 
ing at night. For three or four days the new-born 
calf cannot walk, nor can he rise without help; his 
mother stands over him, waving a foot or trunk 
within a fraction of an inch of his body to keep off 
the flies, and from time to time she kicks the ground 
with her fore-foot, so that a shower of soil flies over 
the prostrate calf; then when he grunts, to express 
his hunger or desire for a change, she places her 
trunk on the farther side of his body, and heaves 
him with her fore-foot to an upright position. Once 
on his feet, he staggers about trying to find the 
pendent udders, and waves his fore-feet in the air 
in futile endeavour to obtain nourishment ; having 
secured the teat, he seems to be careless of any pain 
or inconvenience he may cause. He speedily picks 
up strength and wickedness with his sturdy growth. 
The mode of catching elephants in Upper India 
