108 HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT. 



points of view. It has been connected with the power 

 and state of eastern nations from very early times ; and 

 before the invention of fire-arms, the elephant was regarded 

 as a very powerful auxiliary in war, and numbers of them 

 were brought into battle, not only in Asia, but in some 

 parts of eastern Europe. Even now the elephant is a use- 

 ful appendage to an Indian army ; but it is chiefly as a 

 beast of burden, in the transportation of artillery, and of 

 baggage which is too heavy for the more ordinary carrying 

 animals. He is also used as an appendage of state, for 

 which purpose himself and the houdah or crib, which is 

 fastened on his back, are both decked out in the most gor- 

 geous manner. But though the elephant has thus been 

 made the servant of man for many purposes, almost from 

 time immemorial, it has never been tamed or domesticated 

 in the proper sense of the word. Elephants have never 

 lived in what may be called companionship with society, 

 and under the protection of man, as has been the case 

 with the dog, the horse, and many other animals. There 

 are a few rare instances recorded in which elephants have 

 bred in a state of confinement, but those instances form the 

 exception the rare exception, and not the rule ; and on 

 account of them we cannot venture to say that the elephant 

 has ever been a domestic animal. 



There is another point of view in which the elephant is 

 of great interest, especially to those who study the history 

 of nature in its connexion, both of place and of time. Of 

 living elephants there are only two species, the Asiatic and 

 the African, though there are several varieties, apparently 

 climatal, of the former one. Of these there is not a vestige 

 in any other part of the world than those in which they are 

 at present found, unless it be the accidental bones of one 

 which has been brought from its native country for the 

 purpose of exhibition, and which, perishing before the 

 establishment of museums in which the bones of strange 

 animals are industriously collected, had been buried by 



