THE DISEASES OF ELEPHANTS. 
177 
A highly-arched back is very liable to get galled; and such 
sores, when fairly established, are exceedingly obstinate. 
Such a back will almost always show traces of old sores about 
the ridge, and frequently they are only healed over on the 
surface, leaving deep sinuses below ready to break out on the 
slightest pressure. Such a back should be avoided, and a 
flat back, showing as nearly as possible a straight line from 
the withers to the croup, should be selected. Besides its 
immunity from galling, such a back always carries a load, or 
the howdah, well and steadily. 
“ The above are almost all the external points to which 
the attention of the purchaser requires to be directed. Old 
strains will sometimes affect the paces, but this can be seen 
at once. I have alluded, in the text, to the points of build 
and carriage that should be looked to in choosing an elephant. 
There is no critical test of the animal’s age. The ears are 
always a good deal split and frayed at the edges in an old 
animal, but so they sometimes are also in young ones. The 
general appearance will, however, indicate the age suffi¬ 
ciently well for practical purposes. The full size and deve¬ 
lopment is attained at from thirty-five to forty years, and 
from that age till about sixty, the elephant is in the prime of 
life. . It is desirable to buy an elephant of full age if required 
for shooting, young animals being nearly always timid and 
unenduring. A very old or f aged ’ elephant will be easily 
recognised by the loose, wrinkly state of the skin, deep hol¬ 
lows above the eyes, and very deeply cracked ears. I do not 
think that the number of concentric rings in the ivory of the 
tusk is a reliable criterion, though the natives talk a good 
deal about it. 
“ At the great Sonpur fair, mentioned in the text, which 
is the principal market for elephants, the animals offered for 
sale are usually the property either of landowners from the 
districts of Bengal, or of Mahomedan dealers who move about 
between the places where they are captured and the chief 
markets and native courts. The former are much the safest 
to purchase, having generally been purchased young by the 
landowner, and brought up among his own people at his 
farm, with plentiful food and good treatment. It is quite a 
part of their business this buying of youngsters, which they 
prefer for their own riding, keeping them till of full size, and 
selling them at a good round profit. The dealer’s strings, on 
the other hand, are too often made up of the halt and the 
blind. There is no end to their tricks. A dangeroms man- 
killer is reduced to temporary harmlessness by a daily pill of 
opium and hemp. Kandi sores are plugged, and Sajhan 
