£07 
different Species of Asiatic Elephants. 
nearer an elephant approaches to the true koomareah species, 
the more he is preferred, especially by the natives, and the 
higher price he will consequently bear. 
Europeans are not so particular, and will sometimes prefer 
a merghee female for hunting and riding on, when she is known 
to haye remarkably good paces, and to be of a mild and tract- 
able disposition. 
The elephants for the service of the Honourable East India 
Company, are generally taken in the provinces of Chittigong 
and Tiperah ; but, from what I have heard, those- to the south- 
ward of Chittigong, in the Burmah territories and kingdom of 
Pegu, are of a superior breed. In confirmation of this opinion, 
I may observe, that the elephants taken to the south of the 
Goomty river, which divides the province of Tiperah from east 
to west, are generally better than those taken to the north of 
that river; and, though elephants are taken at Pilibet, as far 
north as latitude 2 9 0 , in the Vizier of Oude’s territories, yet the 
Vizier, and also the officers of his court, give those taken in 
Chittigong and Tiperah a decided preference, they being much 
larger and stronger than the Pilibet elephant. 
Till the year 1790, Tiperah was a part of the Chittigong 
province ; and, so sensible was the Bengal government of the 
superiority of the southern elephants, for carrying burdens, en- 
during fatigue, and being less liable to casualties, that, in the 
late contracts for supplying the army with those useful animals, 
the contractor was bound not to send any elephant to the mi- 
litary stations, taken north of the Chittigong province.. 
Hence we may conclude the torrid zone to. be the natural 
clime, and, the most favourable for producing the largest, the 
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