ELEPHANTS AND THEIR DISEASES

                   A TREATISE ON ELEPHANTS

                          PART I.

                      CHAPTER I.

SUPPLY. AGE. HEIGHT. WEIGHT. VALUE. PURCHASE.
         SALES. MARKS OF IDENTIFICATION.

                                SUPPLY.

As in other countries, the introduction of steam-driven appliances
where possible, in competition with man-power or that of his
servants among the lower animals, has in Burma resulted in some
diminution of the uses to which the elephant is put. This, however,
has not been so great as at first sight might appear, nor has it had
the effect of lessening the demand for elephants in general.
Steam-power in the timber industry here can only be employed in
such places as the log depots and mills, portage of machinery being
anything but easy or cheap in other places, and it is here only that
the elephant has been ousted from his former important and much
admired duties. In Rangoon timber yards the number of elephants
employed for the dragging and stacking of timber is inconsiderable.
In jungle work, in hauling the logs from where they have been
felled to the banks of streams or to cart-roads for transport, the
elephant still proves indispensable, and for this work the consider-
able extension of operations by various companies interested in the
timber industry has brought about an increased demand. So much
is this the case, that the supply appears to be insufficient; for years
prices have been on the rise, and purchasers have had to go further
and further afield to furnish their requirements.

The Karens, Talmes and Laos tribes, inhabiting the country
between the rivers Salween and Me-Ping, the Karens on the western
side of the Salween, in Karenni, and to a smaller extent the Shans
to the north, and the Laos tribes in certain parts of the valley
of the Me-Nam, still continue to be a source of supply of more
or less trained elephants. In this somewhat sparsely populated