Captivity. 



151 



example, the Carthaginians undertook to employ African 

 elephants in war. Jugurtha led them against Metellus, 

 and Juba against Ceesar ; but from inexperienced and 

 deficient training, they proved less effective than the 

 elephants of India, ^ and the historians of these times 

 ascribed to inferiority of race that which was but the 

 result of insufficient education. 



It must, however, be remembered that the elephants 

 which, at a later period, astonished the Romans by their 

 sagacity, and whose performances in the amphitheatre 

 have been described by ^lian and Pliny, were brought 

 from Africa, and acquired their accomplishments from 

 European instructors ; -^ a sufiicient proof that under 

 equally favourable auspices the African species are 

 capable of developing similar docility and powers with 

 those of India. It is one of the facts from which the 

 inferiority of the Negro race has been inferred, that 

 they alone, of all the nations amongst whom the ele- 

 phant is found, have never manifested ability to domesti- 

 cate it ; and even as regards tlie more highly developed 



' Armandi, Hist. Milit. des Ele- 

 ^kanis, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2. It is an 

 interesting fact, noticed by Armandi, 



that the elephants figured on the coins 

 of Alexander and the Seleucidse in- 

 variably exhibit the characteristics of 



the Indian type, whilst those on Roman 

 medals can at once be pronounced 

 African, from the peculiarities of the 

 convex forehead and expansive ears. 

 — Ibid. liv. i. cap. i. p. 3. 



Arm.\ndi has, with infinite industry, 

 collected from original sources a mass 

 of curious information relative to the 

 employment of elephants in ancient 

 warfare, which he has published under 

 the title of Histoire Jlliliiaire des 

 Elephants depids les temps les pins re- 

 cules jiisqiia t introduction, des armes 

 a fell. Paris, 1843. 



° ^Elian, lib. ii. cap. ii. 



