Chap. III.] 
THE ELEPHANT. 
Ill 
enabled, on uneven ground, to lift his feet, which are 
tender and sensitive, with delicacy, and plant them 
with such precision as to ensure his own safety as 
well as that of objects which it is expedient to avoid 
touching. 
A herd of elephants is a family, not a group whom 
accident or attachment may have induced to associate 
together. Similarity of features and caste attest that, 
among the various individuals which compose it, there 
is a common lineage and relationship. In a herd of 
ever, in such precipitous ground is but slopes along the face of the 
not straight from top to bottom, bank, descending till the animal 
gains the level below. This an operation." I have observed that 
elephant has done, at an angle of an elephant in descending a de- 
45 degrees, carrying a howdah, its clivity uses his knees, on the side 
occupant, his attendant, and sport- next the bank ; and his feet on the 
ing apparatus ; and in a much less lower side only, 
time than it takes to describe the 
