Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/626

 small mules, or asses; to five stout pack-mules or bullocks, and to three and one third of a camel. Under such a load the elephant travels at a fair speed, keeping well up with an ordinary army or baggage train, requiring no made road, few guards, and occupying less depth in column than other animals. He is invaluable in jungle country and all roadless regions where heavy loads are to be moved. In Burmah, and on the east and southeast frontier, elephants are absolutely necessary for military supply. When once a good road is made the beast is, of course, easily beaten by wheeled carriages.

He shines most as a special Providence when the cattle of a baggage-train or the horses of a battery are stalled in a bog or struggling helplessly at a steep place. An elephant's tusk and trunk serve at once as lever, screw-jack, dog-hooks, and crane, quickly setting overturned carts and gun-carriages right, lifting them by main force or dragging them in narrow, winding defiles, where a long team can not act; while his head, protected by a pad, is a ram of immense force and superior handiness.

A born forester, it is in jungle-work that the laboring elephant, outside Government service, is seen at his best. The tea-planters of Assam and Ceylon find him useful in forest-clearing and as a pack-animal. They even yoke him to the plow. He is the leading hand in the teak trade of Burmah—unrivaled in the heavy toil of the timber-yard, where he piles logs with wonderful neatness and quickness. Small timbers are carried on the tusks, chipped over and held fast by the trunk. A log with a thick butt is seized with judicious appreciation of balance, while long and heavy balks are levered and pushed into place.

The truth about the camel's character has often been debated. He is wonderful, and in his own way beautiful to look at, and his



patience, strength, speed, and endurance are beyond all praise. The camel-riders of Rajputana and central India, mounted on animals of a swift breed, cover almost incredible distances at high speed, finding it necessary to protect themselves against the rocking motion by broad leather belts, tightly buckled, which are often covered with velvet and prettily broidered in silk. Even they, who know the beast at his best, never pretend to like their