This hunt not only shows the endurance required, but the remarkable faculty of the elephant in travelling great distances when so desperately wounded, and the necessity of the heaviest ammunition to prevent prolonged suffering in the noble animals. When an elephant has been shot in the manner described by Sir Victor, the tusks are secured as trophies, and sometimes the head and other parts. They are either cut out with an axe, or left for ten or twelve days, when they can be easily drawn out of the alveole. The lowest Mysore inhabitants will not eat elephant flesh, though they have no objection to carrion; but the Chittagong hill people eat it with avidity. The tail is also used as a trophy; while the feet are taken and upholstered as footstools, and presented to the sportsman’s lady friends. The feet of calves are converted into cigar-boxes, for the fortunate hunter’s gentleman acquaintances; while tobacco-boxes, inkstands, and various articles are also made as mementoes of the hunt. As the elephant shot by Sir Victor Brooke had the largest tusk ever observed in an Asiatic elephant, I give the measurements:— RIGHT TUSK. FT. IN. Total length, outside curve 8 0 Length of part outside socket or nasal bones (outside curve) 5 9 Length of part inside socket (outside curve) 2 3 Greatest circumference 1 4.9 Weight 90 lbs. LEFT TUSK. FT. IN. Total length, outside curve 3 3 Outside socket, outside curve 1 2 Inside socket, outside curve 2 1 Greatest circumference 1 8 Weight 49 lbs. CHAPTER X. THE WHITE ELEPHANT. Mention of the white elephant is found in the very early histories of Oriental countries. In a work called the “Mahaw Anso,” the animal is described as forming a part of the retinue attached to the Temple of the Tooth at Anarájapoora in the fifth century after Christ; but it commanded no religious veneration, being merely considered as an emblem of royalty. White elephants were so valued in the sixteenth century, that the nations of Pegu and Siam waged a war for many years about one; and, before it was settled, five successive kings were killed, and thousands of men. Horace mentions the white elephant in his “Epistles.” Democritus would laugh at the populace,— “Whether a beast of mixed and monstrous birth Bids them with gaping admiration gaze, Or a white elephant their wonder raise.”