heels, for he is a superb kicker. A spirited mule in full fling radiates a rainbow of kicks, an aurora made splendid by the flash and flicker of his iron. hoofs. With his fore-feet as a centre he clears for himself a sacred inviolable circle. And there are mules as handy with a swift fore-foot as ever was Tom Sayers with his left. So it is written in Major Burn's official manual: "Examining a mule's mouth with the view of ascertaining his age is at times a risky operation, and the following method is recommended Put a halter on the mule's head and blindfold him; stand well in against the near foreshoulder, pass the hand gently up the neck, patting the animal as it goes, and take a firm grip of the root of the ear with the right hand. Seize the upper lip and nose quickly and lightly with the left hand. This must be done quickly and resolutely, guarding against a blow from the fore-foot. In this way a glance at the incisors will be obtained, and it will be seen whether the corner tooth is temporary or permanent." It is to no common animal that a careful Government inscribes so respectful a tribute.

CHAPTER IX

OF ELEPHANTS

"The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant,
The saplings reeling in the path he trod,
Declare his might,-our lord the elephant,
Chief of the ways of God.

"The black bulk heaving where the oxen pant,
The bowed head toiling where the guns careen
Declare our might,-our slave the elephant,
The servant of the Queen."

R. K.

in his aspect and full of delightful and surprising qualities. Nor does familiarity lessen his hold upon the imagination of mankind. Next after the cow he seems to be of all the beasts the Hindu favourite.

At the present moment the most carefully-kept studs of Elephants are in the hands of Hindu Rajas, and the Muhammadan Nawāb prefers the horse. This is an ancient predilection on the part of the Hindu. While other animals represented in Hindu Art are merely decorative and conventional, or awkward and ill-understood, there is invariably a strong feeling for nature in Hindu elephant sculptures and paintings. The contrast may be noticed in most old temples, but especially in the sculptured gates or tori of the Sanchi tope in Central India, where all kinds of animals are shown, but the elephant alone is carved with complete knowledge, and unvarying truth of action.

The grave beast is as great a favourite of the poet as of the artist. The back view of the elephant as he shuffles along, is like nothing so much as that of the stout and elderly "long-shore fisherman and sailor of our English watering-places, whose capacious nether garments, alone among human habiliments, have the horizontally creased bagginess peculiar to the elephant. Dickens said long ago that the elephant employs the worst tailor in all the world. But these wrinkled columns suggest feminine grace to the Oriental poet, and "elephant-gaited" is the supreme and also the invariable expression for the voluptuous movements of women: "A voice as sweet as that of the Koil, and a gait as voluptuous as that of the elephant: An eye like the antelope's, a waist like the lion's, and a gait like the elephant's," are specimens of an end

Nor

less series of descriptions of female beauty. are these expressions confined to ancient poetry, for they are as current to-day as ever they were. Walking behind elephants and women, I have occasionally seen a hint of the poet's meaning, but

only a hint; and one is driven to the conclusion that the simile, like many more in Oriental verse, is mainly conventional. The beast gets along so quietly he might almost be said to glide, but his movements have little of the fine rhythmic swing and poise one sees in the noble gait of a well - formed Hindu woman.

As furnishing a head to Ganésa,

Ganesh, or Ganpati, the wise and humorous god who is invoked at the beginning of all enterprises, whose auspicious image is placed over most Hindu doorways, and whose mystic sign (familiarly spoken of as a Ganésh) stands on the first page of Hindu ledgers and day-books, the elephant has an immense hold on the affections of the people. His sign is the svastika, the cross

fylfot of our western heraldry and the hermetic cross of Freemasonry, traceable from Troy town to China. The traveller and the pilgrim look to Ganesha for protection, the merchant for fortune, the student for advancement, and the housewife for luck.

The popular version of the origin of Ganésha is that during one of the absences of the great Lord Shiva, Parbati his wife, taking a bath, rubbed some

SHIV OR MAHADEO, WITH THE INFANT GANESH
(FROM AN INDIAN LITHOGRAPH)

tiny pellets off her skin and amused herself by moulding them into the form of a child, till at last she breathed life into it. Shiva returned and was outraged to find a baby where no baby should be, so he promptly cut off its head with his sharp warquoit. Then Parbati explained and Shiva said in effect: "Dear me! this is very sad, why did not you speak sooner?" Then, catching sight of an elephant standing near, he cut off its head and clapped it on the decapitated baby. "Now, it's all