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xiii
Government and undertaken to carry out, but from the desire to prove to several officers who considered the scheme to be the vision of a lunatic, that their croakings were rather the utterances of Bedlamites. Pleasantries appeared in the Bangalore papers regar ding the probable effects the Kheddah operations would have on the price of salt, which it was represented was being laid in by me in large quantities for application to the caudal appendages of any elephants I happened to meet with ".
(p. 103)
The author Someśvara mentions I elephant first. This is the only kind of elephant which is described as completely white (it). Modern writers on elephants say that no such elephants are found:
"
"I have never myself seen a really white one, nor have any of the experienced native bunters whom I have met xxx Regarding the white elephants of which we read as forming the most cherished possessions of the King of Ava, I am unable to give any information ".
Sanderson p. 85.
"Occasionally so called white elephants are met with, which are really albinos, the dark pigment being absent from a larger or smaller area of the skin; in Burma and Siam such albinos being highly valued and considered as sacred or royal animals " (Royal Natural History, by Lydekker Vol. II, p. 529.)
Aho! Shrutgyanam