Chaf. yi.] 



CONDUCT IN CAPTIVITY. 



379 



torians 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 Eomans by their 

 sagacity, and whose performances in the amphitheatre 

 have been described by JEhan and Phny, were brought 

 from Africa, and acquired their accomplishments from 

 Eiu-opean instructors ^ ; a sufficient proof that under equally 

 favourable auspices they are capable of developing similar 

 docihty and powers with those of India. 



But it is one of the facts from wliich the inferiority 

 of the Negro race has been inferred, that they alone, 

 of all the nations amongst whom the elephant is found, 

 have never manifested ability to domesticate it, and even 

 as regards the more highly developed races who in- 

 habited the vaUey of the Nile, it is observable that the 

 elephant is nowhere to be found amongst the animals 

 figured on the monuments of ancient Eg}q:)t, whilst they 

 represent the cameleopard, the lion, and even the hippo- 

 potamus. And although in later times the knowledge 

 of the art of training appears to have existed under the 

 Ptolemies, and on the southern shore of the Mediterra- 

 nean ; it admits of no doubt that it was communicated 

 by the more accomphshed natives of India who had 

 settled there.^ 



Another favourite doctrine of the earher visitors to 

 the East seems to me to be equally fallacious ; Pyrard, 

 Berxier, Phillipe, Tiievexot, and other travellers in 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centmies, proclaimed the 



* tElian, lib. ii. ch. ii. 



* See Schlegel's Essay on the 

 Elephant and the Sphjiix, Classical 

 Journal, No. Ix. Although the 

 trained elephant nowhere appe.ars 

 upon the monuments of the Egj-p- 

 tians, the animal wa.s not unknown 

 to them, and ivory find elephants are 

 figured on the walls of Thebes and 

 Karnae amongst the spoils of Thotli- 

 mes III., iiud the tribute paid to 



Eameses I. The Island of Ele- 

 phantine, in the Nile, near .iVssouan 

 (Syene) is styled in hierogl^iihic-al 

 wi-iting " The Land of the Elephant ;" 

 but as it is a mere rock, it probably 

 owes its designation to its form. See 

 Sir Gardner Wilkinson's Anc'ont 

 E()}iptians, vol. i. pi. iv. ; vol. v. p. 170. 

 The elephant as iigiired in the sculp- 

 tures of Nineveh is uui\ersally as 

 wild, not domesticated. 



