142 
ELEPHANT. 
and seem delighted while there to be scrubbed 
with a bricky or any hard substance, on the upper 
part of the head. They are veiy sure-footed, have 
an active shuffling gait, and generally travel about 
three or four miles an hour, but may be urged on 
to six, when goaded by a man who runs behind the 
animal for that purpose. They are very fond of 
sugar-canes and the leaves of the banyan ; they can 
free a cocoa-nut from its tough coat, crack it, and 
take out the nut free from the shell. A small race 
of elephants, from five to six feet in height, are 
much used about the court in the northern part 
of India. When the elephant passes through a 
crowd, he is very careful to open a way with his 
trunk, that he may not injure any one. This ob- 
servation is strengthened by M. d’Obsonville, who 
informs us that the Baron de Lauriston was in- 
duced to go to Laknaor, the capital of the soubah 
or viceroyalty of that name, at a time when an 
epidemic distemper was making the greatest ra- 
vages amongst the inhabitants. The principal road 
to the palace-gate was covered with the sick and 
dying, extended on the ground, at the very mo- 
ment when the nabob must necessarily pass. It 
appeared impossible for the elephant to do other- 
wise than tread upon and crush many of these poor 
wretches in his passage, unless the prince would 
stop till the way could be cleared : but he was in 
haste, and such tenderness would be unbecoming in 
a personage of his importance. The elephant, how- 
