arter, which is 1440 lbs. the
carcase, exclusive of head, legs, hide, and entrails.
[Illustration: (2).--Horns of Arnee.--Scale of Half an Inch to a Foot.]
[Illustration: (3).--Horns of Arnee.--Scale of Half an Inch to a Foot.]
This last sketch (3) is from a pair of horns in the British Museum, of
which the following are the dimensions:--
Ft. In.
The horn _a_, from tip to base, along the outer curve 6 6
The horn _b_ ditto ditto 6 3
Circumference at the base of horn _a_ 1 5
Ditto ditto of horn _b_ 1 6[A]
The Arnee is by far the largest animal of the Ox tribe yet known. In its
native country _it is said_ to measure usually twelve, sometimes
fourteen, feet from the ground to the highest part of the back! The one
in the vignette, p. 111, comparing it with the man on its back, would
not seem to be quite so tall.
From the appearance of the three Arnees in the painting before
mentioned, it would seem that they are quite docile, and easily tamed;
for they are all standing quietly, with a person on their back, who
guides them by means of a rein, formed of a cord fastened to the gristle
of the nose, in the Eastern manner. The colour of the animal, in all the
three figures, is a pure black, except between the horns, where there is
a small tuft of longish hair of a bright red colour.
From the accounts of more recent travellers, there seem to be two or
three varieties of this animal, which exist, both in a wild and domestic
state, in China as well as India.
According to Major Smith, the gigantic or Taur-elephant Arnee, appears
to be rare; found only single, or in small families, in the upper
eastern provinces and forests at the foot of the Himalaya. A party of
officers of the British Cavalry, stationed in the north of Bengal, went
on a three months' hunting expedition to the eastward, and destroyed in
that time forty-two Tigers, and numerous wild Buffaloes, but only one
Arnee. When the head of this specimen rested perpendicularly on the
ground, it required the out-stretched arms of a man to hold the points
of the horns. These are described as angular, with the broadest side to
the rear; the two others anterior and inferior; they are of a brownish
colour, and wrinkled; standing outwards, and not bent back; straight for
near two thirds of t
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