148 
MAMMALIA. 
rapidly, and without the least exertion, as it seems, these huge, 
heavily-built, unwieldy-looking animals get over the ground, 
consisting of the densest jungle, of hill-reeds, bushes, and brush- 
wood, and thick s a /-saplings, interspersed with large trees. 
Awkward as is their gait, they trot very fast ; I say trot , for their 
movement more nearly resembles a trot than anything else, though 
actually it is rather a gait between a trot and a canter. Elephants 
with howdahs have no chance with them in the chase, and unless 
dropped with the first shot, or they suddenly stop and turn to 
stand at hay, thus exposing the fatal spot in the temple within 
fair ball- distance, they generally manage to escape. It is useless 
firing at the body.”* This was written before the present far 
more efficient style of weapon came into use (the low trajectory 
rifle), or the terrible explosive shell was invented, which is now so 
fatally destructive to the largest of land quadrupeds, as well as to 
the most gigantic of marine Cetaceans. 
In the early part of the sixteenth century of our era the famous 
Mogul Emperor Baber (the great-grandson of Timour Lang, or 
Tamerlane, and the founder of the dynasty of the Great Mogul) 
mentions incidentally, in his public memoirs, the occurrence of the 
Rhinoceros, the wild Buffalo, and the Lion in the neighbourhood j 
of the city of the Benares, and the wild Elephant in the vicinity ! 
of Chunar. In his notice of the animals peculiar to Hindustan, 
after describing the Elephant, the imperial author remarks, “ The 
Rhinoceros is another. This also is a huge animal. The opinion 
prevalent in our countries that a Rhinoceros can lift an Elephant 
on its horn is probably a mistake. It has a single horn over its 
nose upwards of a span in length ; but I never saw one of two 
spans.” (From this it would seem that the particular species 
referred to is R. sondaicus, inasmuch as Baber would probably 
bave been able to obtain larger examples of the horn of R. indicus.) 
“ Out of one of the largest of these horns I had a drinking vessel 
made and a dice-box, and about three or four fingers’ bulk of it 
might be left. Its hide is very thick. If it be shot at with a 
powerful bow drawn up to the arm-pit with much force, the arrow 
enters three or four fingers’ breadth. They say, however, that 
there are parts of its skin that may be pierced and the arrows 
enter deep. On the sides of its two shoulder-blades, and of its 
* Linndar remarks, “Viscera ad equina accedunt.” 
