642 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1702. 



entered the narrow passage, there are posts put across, so that none of them 

 can come back, but such as are not fit for service, have liberty to escape. 



It is easy to conceive how the natives invented the chasing elepliants by drums 

 and noise, because it is observed that they themselves are affrighted by drums. 

 I heard an ancient Portuguese relate, that when his countrymen were in posses- 

 sion of this island, they pursued the natives too far up among the woods and 

 hills ; the Ceylonese by this means got the advantage of them, and killed every 

 man of them, except one drummer, who observing them not to draw near 

 where they heard ihe drum, he kept continually beating his drum, and the 

 Ceylonese, thinking that the greatest power was where the drum beat, did not 

 come near him, by which means he saved his life. 



When the elephants have remained some time in tlie narrow passage, they are 

 taken one by one to the stable, being tied fast between two tame elephants, the 

 points of whose long teeth are cut ; if the wild elephant be troublesome, they 

 will hold his trunk with their trunks, and beat him with their teeth, a man 

 sitting on each of the tame elephants to direct them by a staff, on the end of 

 which is a little hook, with which he touches his head, and gilides the tame 

 elephant as he pleases, even without a bridle. When they come to the stable, 

 they are led between two posts, with stakes put athwart before their breasts, and 

 under their bellies, and so bound that they caimot stir, nor lie down on the 

 ground ; for should they be periuitted to lie down, they would become heavy, 

 sorrowful, and would not eat, but die. They arc thus fed with the trunk of 

 waltugas, or plantains ; which tree they love better than any other food. When 

 they have been so fed for 6 weeks, they begin to be tractable, and are fastened 

 only by one foot with cords ; and if the merchants come from Bengal, they are 

 sold and conveyed to the ships ; but if not purchased, they are fed with leaves 

 of the cocoa tree for 12 weeks from the time of their being taken, when they 

 become tame, and eat grass with the oxen in the fields. 



When an elephant is put on board a ship, there is a contrivance made of 15 

 or 20 double sailcloths, which is laid about his breast, belly, and sides, and tied 

 together upon his back, to which ropes are fastened ; he is then led into the 

 water between elephants bred for the purpose, upon each of which a man sits 

 to govern him, and another elephant, upon which a man also sits, goes behind 

 the elephant that is to be shipped ; and when this is unwilling to enter the water, 

 the other that is behind puts his head to the hinder parts of the foremost, and 

 so pushes him forward ; and when he is got deep enough in the water he is tied 

 to the boat, the other elephants return, and he swims after the boat to the ship, 

 where he is hauled on board. But a better way has been invented lately : a large 

 fiat bottomed vessel is prepared, covered with planks like a floor, so that this 



