96 The Wild Elephant. 



panic and inexperience of the wild elephant, since all 

 attempts would be futile to subdue or confine by ordinary 

 force an animal of such strength and sagacity.- 



Knox describes with circumstantiality the mode 

 adopted, two centuries ago, by the servants of the King 

 of Kandy to catch elephants for the royal stud. He 

 says, "After discovering the retreat of such as have 

 tusks, unto these they drive some she elephants, which 

 they bring with them for the purpose, which, when once 

 the males have got a sight of, they will never leave, but 

 follow them wheresoever they go ; and the females are so 

 used to it that they will do whatsoever, either by word 

 or a beck, their keepers bid them. And so they delude 

 them along through towns and countries, and through the 

 streets of the city, even to the very gates of the king's 

 palace, where sometimes they seize upon them by snares, 



' The device of taking them by surface by means of hurdles and earth, 



means of pitfalls still prevails in India ; which he placed underfoot as they 



but in addition to the difficulty of pro- were thrown down to him, till he was 



viding against that caution with which enabled to step out on solid ground, 



the elephant is supposed to reconnoitre when the noosers and decoys were in 



suspicious ground, it has the further readiness to tie him up to the nearest 



disadvantage of exposing him to injury tree." (See Wolf's Life and Adven- 



from bruises and dislocations in his tures, p. 152.) Shakspeare appears to 



fall. Still it was the mode of capture have been acquainted with the plan of 



employed by the Singhalese, and so taking elephants in pitfalls : Decius, 



late as 1730 Wolf relates that the encouraging the conspirators, reminds 



native chiefs of the Wanny, when them of Ca^s.ir's taste for anecdotes of 



capturing elephants for the Dutch, animals, by which he would undertake 



made "pits some fathoms deep in those to lure him to his fate : 



places whither the elephant is wont to <, t- u 1 » u 



l-^ , . . , , . , " For he loves to hear 



go m search of food, across which were „, ^ . i, t, » a , ,;.t, 



* . , , J • u u u A That unicorns may be betrayed with 



laid poles covered with branches and 



baited with the food of which he is . , , ' . , , , , , , •., 



, ,. J u- I, u c J And bears with glasses : ^/^//irt«2'j i£7//< 



fondest, making towards which he finds 7 ; , » 



himself taken unawares. Thereafter 



being subdued by fright and exhaustion, Julius C.'esar, Act ii. Scene I. 



he was assisted to raise himself to the 



