72 SURROUNDING ELEPHANTS. 



bamboo fencing serves to show the jemadar and his assistants where the 

 elephants have broken out should they escape, so that the particular men who 

 are to blame can be detected. The surround is always made as extensive as 

 possible, as with plenty of cover, fodder, and water inside, the elephants give 

 less trouble than if confined in a small space. The investment may have 

 to be maintained for a week or so, sometimes much longer. The elephants 

 give some little trouble for the first two nights, but after that time they 

 seldom try to force the guards unless fodder becomes scarce inside. The 

 guards are supplied with provisions, and cook their meals at their posts. 



The construction of the kheddah, inside the large circle, is commenced 

 as soon as the elephants are surrounded. For this work one of the two 

 coolies is taken from each post from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m., as the elephants give 

 little trouble during the day, and a single sentry suffices. The Hindoostanee 

 word kheddah means the enclosure or pound intended for imprisoning the 

 herd. This is formed of stout uprights about twelve feet in height, arranged 

 in a circle of from twenty to fifty yards in diameter, and strongly backed by 

 sloping supports and binders behind. An entrance of four yards in width 

 is left for the ingress of the herd. The enclosure is built on one of the 

 elephants' chief runs, and in a spot where the thickness of the cover screens 

 it from view. Elephants keep strictly to beaten tracks in traversing the 

 jungles — a circumstance of great service in arranging plans for their capture. 

 To guide the elephants to the gate, two lines of strong palisades are run out 

 from it on each side of the path by winch they will approach. These guiding 

 wings diverge to perhaps fifty yards across at their commencement, which may 

 be a hundred yards or so from the gate. When the herd is once within this 

 funnel-shaped approach, it is easily driven forward by the beaters closing in 

 from behind. The gate is made very strong, and is studded with iron spikes 

 on the inside. It is slung by rope-hinges to a cross-beam, and is dropped 

 by the rope being cut as soon as the elephants have entered. Inside, round 

 the foot of the palisade, a ditch is generally dug about four feet wide and 

 deep, to deter the elephants from trying the stockade, or should they do so, 

 to prevent their standing in a position to use their strength to advantage. 

 Elephants rarely attempt to force the palisades ; they never do so in a body. 

 Occasionally an enterprising animal will try his strength on them ; and 

 strong though the stockade is, I have known a determined tusker go through 

 as if it had been made of corn-stalks. The men closed up at once on this 

 occasion, and none of the others attempted to follow their leader — an instance 

 of the elephants' lack of intelligence in certain matters. 



As soon as the kheddah is completed, probably in four or five days from 

 the time of the surround, arrangements are made for driving the herd. For 



