DECOY ELEPHANTS 463 



whole herds are driven into an enclosure and entrapped in one 

 vast decoy. This may truly be called the sublime of sport, for 

 nowhere is it conducted on a grander scale, or so replete with 

 thrilling emotions. 



The keddah or corral, as the enclosure is called, is* constructed 

 in the depth of the forest, several hundred paces long, and half 

 as broad, and of a strength commensurate to the power of the 

 animals it is intended to secure. Slowly and cautiously the 

 doomed herds are driven onwards from a vast circuit by thousands 

 of beaters in narrowing circles to the fatal gate, which is instantly 

 closed behind them, and then the hunters, rushing with wild 

 clamour and blazing torches to the stockade, complete the 

 terror of the bewildered animals. Trumpeting and screaming 

 with rage and fear, they rush roimd the corral at a rapid pace, 

 but all their attempts to force the powerful fence are vain, for 

 wherever they assail the palisade, they are met with glaring 

 flambeaux and bristling spears, and on whichever side they 

 .ipproach, they are repulsed with shouts and discharges of 

 musketry. For upwards of an hour their frantic efforts are con- 

 iinued with unabated energy, till at length, stupified, exhausted, 

 and subdued by apprehension and amazement, they form them- 

 selves into a circle, and stand motionless under the dark shade 

 of the trees in the middle of the corral. 



To secure the entrapped animals, the assistance of tame 

 elephants or decoys is necessary, who, by occupying their atten- 

 tion and masking the movements of the nooser, give him an 

 opportunity of slipping one by one a rope round their feet until 

 their capture is completed. 



The quickness of eye displayed by the men in watching the 

 slightest movement of an elephant, and their expertness in 

 flinging the noose over its foot, and attaching it firmly before 

 the animal can tear it off with its trunk, are less admirable than 

 the rare sagacity of the decoys, who display the most perfect 

 conception of the object to be attained, and the means of accom- 

 plishing it. Thus Sir Emerson Tennent saw more than once, 

 during a great elephant hunt which he witnessed in 1847, that 

 when one of the wild elephants was extending his trimk, and 

 would have intercepted the rope about to be placed over his leg, 

 the decoy, by a sudden motion of her own trunk, pushed his 

 aside and prevented him ; and on one occasion, when successive 



