ANIMAT.S. +81 



ranks with its immense bulk, flings sucli as oppose it into the 

 air, or crushes them to death under its feet. In the meantime 

 those who are placed upon its back, combat as from an eminence, 

 and fling down their weapons with double force, their weight 

 being added to their velocity. Nothing, therefore, can be more 

 dreadful, or moie irresistible, than such a moving machine, to 

 men unacquainted with the modern arts of war ; the elephant 

 thus armed and conducted, raging in the midst of the field of 

 battle, inspires more terror than even those machines that de- 

 stroy at a distance, and are often most fatal when most unseen. 

 But this method of combating is rather formidable than effectual : 

 polished nations have ever been victorious over those semi-bar- 

 barous troops that have called in the elephant to their assistance 

 or attempted to gain a victory by merely astonishing their op - 

 posers. The Romans quickly learned the art of opening their 

 ranks to admit the elephant, and thus separating it from assist- 

 ance, quickly compelled its conductors to calm the animal's fury, 

 and to submit. It sometimes also happened that the elephant 

 became impatient of control ; and, instead of obeying its con- 

 ductor, turned upon those forces it was employed to assist. In 

 either case, there was a great deal of preparation to very little 

 effect, for a single elephant is known to consume as mueh as 

 forty men in a day. 



At present, therefore, they are chiefly employed in carrying, or 

 drawing burdens, throughout the whole Peninsula of India ; and 

 no animal can be more fitted by nature for this employment. 

 The strength of an elephant is equal to its bulk, for it can, with 

 great ease, draw a load that six horses could not move ; it can 

 readily carry upon its back three or four thousand weight ; upon 

 its tusks alone it can support near a thousand : its force may 

 also be estimated from the velocity of its motion, compared to 

 t!ie mass of its body. It can go, in its ordinary pace, as fast us 

 a horse at an easy trot ; and, when ])ushed, it can move as swiftly 

 as a horse at full gallop. It can travel with ease fifty or sixty 

 miles a-day ; and, when hard pressed, almost double that distance. 

 It may be heard trotting on at a gi-eat distance ; it is easy also to 

 follow it by the track, which is deeply impressed on the ground, 

 and from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter. 



In India they are also put to other veiy disagreeable oflices ;* 



* The elephiint, althoiigli the mildesf and most iiioficiisive of quadrupeds, 

 II. " 'tJ S 



