158 THE ELEPHANT. 



" There were, as near as I could manage to ascertain, 

 about seventy of them in . the herd ; and I remarked 

 here and there the pale light of the ivory/' 



Such are the pictures which unfold themselves in 

 Asia to the sight of the traveller. In Ceylon they 

 frequently take a hundred elephants or more in one 

 battue. So much for India. In Africa a like Spectacle 

 is seen. Speke, in the Ounyoro, met a herd of a 

 hundred female elephants ; and Livingstone says that 

 there are a prodigious number -on the spot where the 

 Zonga empties into the Lake Ngami. 



Delegorgue estimated that he was once in the midst 

 of a herd of six hundred. A hunter has even pre- 

 tended to have .seen, three thousand at once. 



IN India the methods of taking elephants are very 

 varied .(we will describe farther on how they kill them) ; 

 to describe' them all would be tedious. It is well 

 known 'what pomp the Eastern princes were used to 

 display in these expeditions. 



One day, as the Count de Forbin, then Grand Ad- 

 miral and General of the armies of the King of Siam, 

 was assisting at a hunt of this kind, the king asked 

 him what he thought of the magnificent display around 

 him. " Sire," replied Forbin, " seeing your majesty 



