294 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



were kept for fighting, and that each of them had 

 his own special antagonist. Other elephants were 

 kept for amusement, and were taught to dance, to 

 play on musical instruments, to shoot arrows from 

 a bow, and to perform other tricks. It is further 

 mentioned that a special class of men, famed for their 

 skill in teaching these tricks to elephants, were main- 

 tained at the court for the purpose. 



I suppose that these performances by elephants went 

 out of fashion. They are not mentioned, so far as I 

 know, by any of the early European travellers. I have 

 never heard of their prevailing at any of the modern 

 native courts, nor have I heard any tradition regarding 

 them at the courts of the subsequent emperors. The 

 elephant-fights, on the contrary, remained an institution 

 to the last. They are especially noticed by the early 

 European travellers, and always with condemnation on 

 account of their extreme cruelty. The cruelty was not, 

 however, to the elephants, but to the mahowts who 

 rode them. Each elephant endeavoured to unseat the 

 mahowt of his antagonist, and if he succeeded, then, if 

 he could, he trampled him to death. 



Bernier, in describing these elephant-fights, says that 

 they hardly ever took place without one or more of the 

 mahowts being killed. So dangerous, indeed, were they 

 regarded, that the mahowts who were to take part in 

 them, before mounting their elephants, bade farewell 

 to their wives and children, like soldiers proceeding to 

 battle. According to Hawkins, the Emperor Jehangire 

 added a further cruelty to these exhibitions. If a 

 mahowt, when unseated and flung on the ground, was 



