44 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



But it is not for drawing burdens alone that the elephants are 

 serviceable in war ; they are, in the East, often brought into the 

 ranks, and compelled to fight in the most dangerous parts of the 

 field of battle : they are led, armed before with coats of mail, and 

 loaded on the back each with a square tower, containing from five 

 combatants to seven. Upon its neck sits the conductor, who goads 

 the animal into the thickest ranks, and encourages it to increase the 

 devastation ; * wherever it goes, nothing can withstand its fury ; it 

 levels the ranks with its immense bulk, flings such as oppose it in- 

 to the air, or crushes them to death under its feet. In the mean 

 time, those who are placed upon its back combat as from" an emi- 

 nence, and fling down their weapons with double force, their weight 

 being added to their velocity.f Nothing, therefore, can be more 

 dreadful, or more irresistible, than such a moving machine, to men 

 unacquainted with the modern arts of war; the elephant, thus arm- 

 ed and conducted, raging in the midst of a field of battle, inspires 

 more terror than even those machines that destroy at a distance, and 

 are often most fatal when most unseen. 



The strength of an elephant is equal to its bulk, for it can, with 

 great ease, draw a load that six horses could not move : it can read- 

 iiy carry upon its back three or four thousand weight; upon its tusks 

 alone it can support nearly a thousand. Its force may also be esti- 

 mated from the velocity o'f its motion, compared to the mass of its 

 body, It can go, in its ordinary pace, as fast as a horse at an easy 

 trot ; and, when pushed, it can move as swiftly as a horse at full 

 gallop. It can travel with ease fifty or sixty miles a day ; and when 

 hard pressed, almost double that distance. It may be heard trotting 

 on at a great distance ; it is easy also to follow it by its track, which 

 is deeply impressed on the ground, and from fifteen to eighteen 

 inches in diameter. 



In India they are also put to other very disagreeable offices, for 

 in some courts of the more barbarous princes, they are used as 

 executioners; and this horrid task they perform with great dexteri- 

 ty. With their trunks they are seen to break every limb of the 

 criminal at the word of command ; they sometimes trample him to 

 death, and sbmetimes impale him on their tusks, as directed. In 

 this, the elephant is rather the servant of a cruel master, than a vol- 

 untary tyrant, since no other animal of the forest is so naturally 

 benevolent and gentle ; equally mindful of benefits as sensible o'f 

 neglect, he contracts a friendship for his keeper, and obeys him to 

 the utmost of his capacity. 



* * And that they might provoke the elephants to fight, they showed them the blood of 

 grapes and mulberries.' 1 Mac. vi. 34. 



f * And upon the beasts there were strong towers of wood, which covered each of 

 them, and were girt fast to them by mechanical devices : there were also upon each of 

 them, two and thirty strongmen, who fought upon them, beside the Indian that ruled 

 them.' 1 Mac. vi. 37. 



