122 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



party of picked koonkies used to the work and their 

 attendants, usually as naked as on the day they 

 were born, enter the keddah, and get a captive 

 between two of them. Their legs are in a minute 

 or two fettered, ropes thick as many a hawser thrown 

 round their necks, and they are removed one by one 

 between two powerful elephants, to a suitable locality, 

 where fodder and water is plentiful, and it is almost 

 incredible how soon they become docile. 



CATCHING ELEPHANTS IN PITFALLS. 



This has been forbidden throughout our possessions 

 in the East, as it led to the death of so many beasts. 

 Men engaged in this operation note the way elephants 

 go to their feeding grounds and back, dig pitfalls 

 about nine feet deep just narrow enough to contain 

 the body of the elephant and no more cover them up 

 with boughs, bamboos, &c., scatter leaves and grass 

 and fresh elephant dung over the surface, dig other 

 pitfalls at right angles and along other paths, till 

 there is a regular network of them. I once went 

 with a party and was present when three fine animals 

 were caught and not seriously injured. They (the 

 men) lay in wait, and when the elephants entered the 

 path and were only a few yards from the first pit, 

 they created such a din, firing guns and rockets, 

 lighting fires, beating tom-toms and rushing with 

 lighted torches towards the affrighted herd that a 

 rush forward naturally took place. The leader, a fine 

 female, fell into the first pit, the others scattered here 

 and there ; but there were perils in every path. The 

 noise made was awful, and I only wonder that more 



