Capturing Elephants. 115 



ropes cut deep into the flesh and cannot easily be ex- 

 tricated. Directly this has been accomplished, the 

 prisoner is placed between two tame elephants, males 

 and tuskers, if it shows signs of fighting ; but 

 generally directly a wild elephant finds itself a 

 captive, it resigns itself to its fate, and goes quietly 

 to the place where it is temporarily tethered with other 

 confreres, whence it is moved in a few days to a per- 

 manent camp, where it is broken in and made fit for 

 work in six months. When a wild elephant is very 

 obstreperous and proves too strong, the rope attached 

 to the noose is cut and it is allowed to escape ; but 

 this seldom happens, and when it does, oftener than 

 not mortification sets in and the beast is afterwards 

 found dead. Now and then, but very rarely, a koonkie 

 is overthrown and her riders killed in these encounters. 

 This mode of hunting has now been forbidden, as so 

 many of those so caught died, that the Government 

 forbade it, still it is carried on all the same on the 

 strict q.t., but only in remote and far-away provinces. 

 The first time I was present at such a hunt was 

 near Tikri Killah, not far from Bengali-hat. My wife 

 was in camp with me. Off a quiet pad elephant, 

 she looked on for a while from a distance, but when 

 she saw us careering full speed over the plain, covered 

 with long grass and noted for being cut up with 

 watercourses and other obstructions, she thought I 

 was insane, and went home fully expecting to find 

 herself a widow before night ! That was some twenty- 

 five years ago ! I knew the Mahajun (banker) 

 who owned the koonkies, having met him during one 

 of my inspections not far from Goalparah, when 1 

 took him out shooting on the churs where he actually 



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