72 FOREST LIFE AND SPORT IN INDIA 
it has lost its unreasoning fear of man, and promptly 
resents his approach. Elephants are fit for light 
work at fifteen years of age, are mature at about 
forty, and continue to work till seventy years of age 
or older ; but they are delicate creatures, suffering 
much from sun and heat, and from lameness. In 
Burma they are let loose in the forest with a 
forty-foot tracking chain attached to one leg, and 
thus it is that there the young are frequently born 
in confinement ; but in India elephants are stall-fed, 
and therefore the more enjoy being ridden slowly 
through the forest, when each mouthful plucked 
may be a bonne bouche of excellent flavour. 
The wild tusker is dangerous or harmless accord- 
ing to the humour he is in. For instance, when he 
occupies his leisure in tearing the bark off the “sal” 
tree and consuming strips of many feet in length, he 
is taking his spring tonic, and is not bad-tempered ; 
but when he is heard smashing trees and uprooting 
saplings, it may be inferred that he is venting his 
seasonal fury on inanimate objects for want of better 
sport, and on such occasions he is to be avoided. 
Many foresters have had narrow escapes from wild- 
elephants. For instance, Colonel Campbell had the 
animal he was riding upset and deeply gored, his 
orderly being killed, and he himself escaping up a 
stout tree ; and as the Colonel was one of the best 
shots in India, it seems certain that he was unable 
to stop or turn the charge with the weapons at his 
disposal. 
The elephant stands very silently on the approach 
of man, and to turn suddenly round a clump of 
bamboos and see a monstrous and expectant form in 
