io6 The Wild Elephant. 



the struggle, the difficulty of removing so great a carcase 

 is extreme. The noosing and securing them, therefore, 

 takes place in Ceylon within the area of the first en- 

 closure into which they enter, and the dexterity and 

 daring displayed in this portion of the work far surpasses 

 that of merely attaching the rope through the openings 

 of the paling, as in an Indian keddah. 



One result of this change in the system is manifested 

 in the increased proportion of healthy elephants event- 

 ually secured and trained out of the number originally 

 enclosed. The reason of this is obvious : under the old 

 arrangements, months were consumed in the preparatory 

 steps of surrounding and driving in the herds, which at 

 last arrived so wasted by excitement and exhausted by 

 privation that numbers died within the corral itself, and 

 still more under the process of training. But in later 

 years the labour of months has been reduced to weeks, 

 and the elephants are driven in fresh and full of vigour, 

 so that comparatively few are lost either in the enclosure 

 or the stables. A conception of the whole operation 

 from commencement to end will be best conveyed by 

 describing the progress of an elephant corral as I wit- 

 nessed it in 1847 in the great forest on the banks of the 

 Alligator River, the Kimbul-oya, in the district of Korne- 

 galle, about thirty miles north-west of Kandy. 



Kornegalle, or Kurunai-galle, was one of the ancient 

 capitals of the island, and the residence of its kings 

 from A. D. 1319 to 1347.' The dwelling-house of the 

 principal civil officer in charge of the district now 



• See Sir J. Emerson Tennent's Ceylon vol. I. pt. in. ch. xii. p. 415. 



