4-78 HISTORY OF 



and it has been known to die for grief, when, in some sndden 

 fit of madness, it has killed its conductor. We are told, that 

 one of these, that was used by the French forces in India for the 

 drawing their cannon, was promised, by the conductor, a reward, 



\vhicli contained one of their companions who feigned to be sick.f Tliis 

 feat of dancing- or walking iipon a rope, miglit, perliaps, be donbted, if it 

 leiitcd merely upon the testimony of a single author ; but the practice is 

 confirmed by many ancient writers of authority, Mho agree with Pliny, that 

 the elephants trained at Rome would not only walk along a rope forward, 

 but retire backward with eqtial precision. Seneca describes, an elephant 

 « ho, at the command of his African keeper, would kneel do^Ti, and walk 

 upon a rope. Suetonius also mentions, that an elephant in the presence of 

 the Emperor Galba, climbed up an inclined rope to tJie roof of the theatre, 

 and descend in the same way, bearing a sitter. Dion gives a similar testi- 

 mony to the extiaordiuary power of so heavy an animal to waik along a 

 rope without any balance— a docility which is the more wonderful, when 

 we bear in mind that one of the strongest instincts wliich the elephant pos. 

 scsses, is that which impels him to experiment upon the stability of every 

 stu'face which he is required to cross, before he will trust liis body to the 

 clunice of breaking down the support which is prepared for him. The 

 yielding rope must have called this instinct into action ; although it should 

 be observed, that the elephimt will pass a bridge which vibrates, wln-n 

 nothing will induce him to set foot upon one whose totterijig condition 

 manifests its insecurity. It may a little abate our surprise at the rope- 

 dancing faculty of the elephant, when we learn that a horse has exhibited 

 the same performance. At the solemnities which attend the wedding of 

 Kobert, brother to the King of France, in 1237, a horse was riddi'n aiong a 

 rope. 



Amongst the curious feats of elephants, though less remarkable than those 

 we have described, Arrian mentions, that he saw an elephant who, having 

 a cymbal attached to each knee, and holding a third by his proboscis, beat a 

 measure with astonishing exactness ; and that other elephants danced in a 

 circle round him, without dmiating in the least from the time which 

 their companion indicated. Busbequius (or Busbec), who was ambassador 

 from the Emperor of Germany, to Constantinople, in 1555, saw an elephant 

 there not only dance with elegance and accuracy, but play with a ball Mith 

 great skiU, throwing it \\ ith his trunk, and catching it again, as easily as a 

 man could with his hands. Of the reverence \\'hich elephants may be taught 

 to pay to hiunan beings, we have several remarkable instances. An elephant 

 is recorded to have saluted Domitian : and Martial has alluded to the Circiun- 

 Btance in a nauseously flattering epigram, which intimates that the creature 

 paid this homage without any command ; and that he instinctively felt the 

 divinity, as the poet calls it, of this pampered tyrant. The elephant which 

 Emanuel of Portugal presented to Leo X. went upon his knees, with a [jro- 

 fomid inclination of his head, when he first saw the Pope. Ihe veneration 

 of the elephant for persons in authority has descended to those of secondary 



• Pliiiii Nal. Hi3t. lib. viii. c. 2. It is tlifticnit to undprstami how the eleiihaiits cniild 

 oftrry a llUer, without walking alon^ two i'ur.^llcl rojies. The text of Pliny gives no elucidd* 

 ticn of lli'ii point. 



