Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/625

 stand still. Some mahouts are quite skillful in this pattern-work. Then the howdah pad is girthed on with cotton ropes, riding over flaps of leather to prevent the chafing to which the sensitive skin is liable. The howdah itself, a cumbrous frame of wood covered with beaten silver plates, is slung and tied with a purchase on the tail-root, and heavy cloths, broidered in raised work of gold and silver thread, are attached, hanging like altar-cloths down the sides. A frontlet of gold and silver diaper, with fringes of fish-shaped ornaments in thin beaten silver, necklaces of large silver hawk-bells and chain-work, with embossed heart-shaped pendants as big as the open hand, and hanging ornaments of chains of silver cartouches, are adjusted. A cresting of silver ornaments, like small vases or fluted soup-tureens, exaggerations of the knobs along a horse's crest, descend from the rear of the howdah to the tail; anklets of silver are sometimes fitted round the huge legs.



and a bell is always slung at his side. The pillars of the howdah canopies, and then the canopies themselves, with their finials, are fitted as the beast kneels.

It is officially stated that "all who have had to deal with elephants agree that their good qualities can not be exaggerated; that their vices are few, and only occur in exceptional animals; that they are neither treacherous nor retentive of injury; and that they are obedient, gentle, and patient beyond measure." This is higher and more sympathetic praise than is usually tied up in the pink tape of secretariats, and it is all true.

The normal load for continuous travel of a fair-sized elephant is eight hundred pounds, so the animal is equal to eight ponies.