lately found in Behriny^s Straits. 337 



joined Afrasiab, the Scythian monarch, against the Persians. 

 They were entirely defeated by Roostum. The Chinese 

 monarch was mounted on a white elephant. (Wars and Sports, 

 p. 87.) Thus elephants were in use at Singan, which is in 

 latitude 35° 14', on the river Hoei-ho, which joins the Hoang- 

 ho in east longitude 1 10°, the mouth of which is in the Pacific, 

 in east longitude 120°. Elephants are used for drawing ships 

 upon the river Kiang-keou, which is more than two thousand 

 miles long. (Vincent le Blanc, p. 103.) 



From Kinsai, Japan was invaded A. D. 1283, according to 

 the annals of Japan, by the Tartar General Mookoo with four 

 thousand * ships and two hundred and forty thousand troops. 

 At this epoch the emperor Shi-tsu (Kublai) always used 

 elephants in his wars. The expedition was dispersed and 

 supposed to be destroyed by a storm. Moguls and elephants 

 landed in Peru and California, according to all the traditions, 

 and remains of elephants are found at the places which those 

 traditions relate to. Ambassadors were sent upon elephants 

 to the great Mexican lake. Montezuma's ancestors tarried at 

 Culiacan till the year 1324, when they advanced, selected a 

 wild spot of underwood, threw up entrenchments, ^inl founded 

 the city of Mexico. They fought the Tlascallans with ele- 

 phants. A skeleton of an elephant has been found in a tomb 

 in Mexico, which had evidently been constructed on purpose ; 

 and wild elephants are now existing at Choco in Colombia, 

 and on the western side of the Missouri.f Chinese ships were 

 found wrecked upon the coast of South America by the 

 earliest Spaniards. We may therefore safely conclude, that 

 many elephants were lost in this tempest. The annals of 



* Whatever the real number of ships was, six hundred were built 

 specifically for this expedition, at " Kiang-nan, Fou-kien, Ho-nan and 

 Chan-tong." (Marsden's Marco Polo, p. 574.) These might have the 

 accommodation for the elephants ; two of which, in each of these ships, 

 would be more effectual against the cavalry of Japan (where there are 

 no elephants) than any number of horses ; and be more easily conveyed 

 and fed. They would also land in armour, and in better condition for 

 immediate action than cavalry. 



t See Quarterly Journal of Science, January, 1828, p. 356, 



