Chap. IV.] AN ELEPHANT CORRAL. 343 



A fresh circle nearer to the keddah is then formed in 

 the same way, and into tliis the elephants are admitted 

 from the first one, the hunters following from behind, 

 and hghting new fires around the newly inclosed space. 

 Day after day the process is repeated ; till the drove 

 has been brought sufficiently close to make the final 

 rush ; when the whole party close in from all sides, and 

 with drums, guns, shouts, and flambeaux, force the 

 terrified animals to enter the fatal enclosure, when the 

 passage is barred behind them, and retreat rendered 

 impossible. 



Their effbrts to escape are repressed by the crowd, 

 who drive them back from the stockade with spears 

 and flaming torches ; and at last compel them to pass on 

 into the second enclosure. Here they are detained for 

 a short time, their feverish exhaustion being reheved 

 by free access to water ; and at last being tempted by 

 food or otherwise induced to trust themselves in the 

 narrow outlet ; they are one after another made fast by 

 ropes, passed in through the pahsade, and picketed in 

 the adjoining woods to enter on theu' com'se of syste- 

 matic training. 



These arrangements vary in different districts of 

 Bengal ; and the method adopted in Ceylon differs in 

 many essential particulars from them all ; the Keddah, 

 or, as it is there called, the corral or korahl ^ (from the 

 Portuguese curral, a " cattle-pen ") consists of but one 

 enclosure instead of three. A stream or wateriiig-[)]ace 

 is not uniformly enclosed within it, because, although 

 water is indispensable after the long thkst and ex- 

 haustion of the captives, it has been found that a pond 

 or rivulet within the corral itself adds to the difficulty 

 of mastering them, and increases their reluctance to 

 leave it ; besides which, the smaller ones are often smo- 

 thered by the others in their eagerness to crowd into 



^ It is thus spelled by Wolf, in 

 his Life and Adventures, p. l44. 

 Corral is at the . present day a house- 



hold word in South America, and 

 especially in La Plata, to desij^mate 

 an enclosure for cattle, 



z 4 



