AN EXPLOEATION IN THE EAK EAST. 429 



years the annual tribute of the Thakurs whose possessions 

 they disturbed had been remitted on this account. The people 

 were totally unable to defend themselves from such powerful 

 foes, and most of the villages I met with on the borders of 

 the jungle are furnished with platforms in high trees, to which 

 the people were accustomed to retreat on the occurrence of 

 an invasion. Shooting at wild elephants only increases the 

 damage they occasion, by breaking up the herds and spread- 

 ing their ravages over a larger area ; and, besides, to shoot an 

 elephant is like hanging a man, the worst use that can be 

 made of him. After a good deal of reporting and corre- 

 spondence, the Government of India was induced to send down 

 one of its regularly organised elephant-catching establishments 

 to these wilds, which attacked the herds during the years 

 1865 to 1867. The system pursued in this country was 

 somewhat peculiar, and has been thus described by an eye- 

 witness.* 



" Several modes of capture were tried here, but the most 

 successful was a simple stockade erected hurriedly in one 

 of the runs near the spot where the elephants were tracked. 

 To make this process successful, a very large establishment is 

 required, for all necessary arrangements to be of any use 

 must be made at once. A rough ring-fence of bamboos is 

 thrown round a large area, traversing in circumference some 

 two or three miles, within which the elephants have lots of 

 moving room. This enclosure must contain water and fodder, 

 or the elephants are certain to break through. At every few 

 paces there are two coolies who relieve one another, and by 

 striking the fence with a stick, keep up a continual clatter. 

 Then at every hundred yards or so, there is a matchlock-man 



* Eeport on the Settlement of the Bilaspur district of the Central Provinces, 

 by J. W. Chisholm, Esq. 



