and if they should catch the eye, why, "the screw was lost or worn out," or, "it was always so," or, "the smith or the tailor has been told a dozen times about it"-and a deprecating smile ends the matter.

At last my lord the elephant is ready, but even now is apt to get into trouble. His natural habit is to fling dust, leaves, and fodder stalks on his back, just as it is the natural inclination of the smartlydressed little boy to go straightway and make a mud pie. So he must be looked after while the mahout puts on a coat and turban, and, armed with his ankus or goad hook of gilded steel, and a fly flap of yak tail in a silver handle, is ready to mount. “Mâil, Mâil Barchhi gaj Bahadur!" "Go on, go on, my Lord the Spear!" and they join the retinue of spearmen, mace and staff bearers, and other attendants waiting for the Raja. And frequently you will see in the midst of the blaze of colour and silver and gold one of the mahout's little boys leaning with folded arms and legs crossed at ease against the fore-leg of the foremost elephant. He is as near nude as may be, but from the complacent grin on the unkempt little monkey's face you might fancy he considered himself the most important figure in the show. Nor would he be ignominiously sent away, save by some officious underling. Urbane old Wazirs would glance at him with an amiable smile, though they did not confess aloud that his was an auspicious intrusion as of the black spot in the splendour of the poppy-a "năzăr wattu" averter of the evil eye, the Nemesis always waiting

or

for those who do not acknowledge by some lowly touch of imperfectness that "the glories of our earthly state are shadows, not substantial things."

It is not now thought a great feat to send elephants down to the sea in ships. They are engirdled with slings as they stand, little dreaming that presently they will be snatched up, swung aloft, and lowered deep into a dark hold.

Some of the earlier cargoes were not so easily managed. A distinguished officer told me of his troubles with a batch of elephants he took from Calcutta to Chittagong, and how they very nearly wrecked a ship. The first to be shipped was awkwardly handled, caught the hatchway with his tusks and trunk, slung himself askew, and struggled and fought hard. But at last all the forty were stowed, and the steamer went down the Hooghly, anchoring for the night in an oil-still sea off Saugor Point. Now the elephant is the most restless creature alive, always in motion; a fact which native observation has noted in the saying, "An elephant's shoulder is never still." At first they said it was a ground swell that made the ship roll so much, but soon the Captain came in dire alarm to the officer in charge of the freight. The elephants had found that by swaying to and fro all together, a rocking motion was produced which seemed to please them immensely. So the great heads and bodies rolled and swung in unison, till the ship, which had no other cargo and rode light, was in imminent danger of rolling clean over. The

mahouts were hurried down into the hold, and each, seated on his beast, made him "break step" so to speak. There they had to stay for a long time. An unforeseen difficulty was found in carrying fodder along the central avenue. The elephants would allow a laden coolie to proceed a little way, and then, with the quiet mischief of their kind, one would lay him by the heels with his trunk while the others snatched his bundles of grass. So they

made a gangway over their backs along which the coolies crawled. The worst was when the elephant first shipped died in his place, of vexation, mahouts would say, who believe the creatures only die when they are so inclined. He was the farthest from the hatchway, and in the awful heat of the Bay of Bengal he had to be taken to pieces and passed through the line of his brethren, up and over the side in ships' buckets! Arrived in port there was no wharf, and the animals had to swim and wade a mile of water from the anchorage to the shore. The first was slung down, his mahout on his neck, to the water, as it seemed from the deck, a lascar clinging to the chain to let go the swivel. go too soon, the elephant fell with a mighty splash, losing his mahout, while the suddenly released chain shot the astonished lascar like a bolt from a catapult some fifty yards away.

He let

It is not, however, trials of this kind that make the English transport officer, struggling across creation with mules, oxen, and elephants, gray before his time, but the number of reports and