A MASSACRE OF INNOCENTS. 299 



whole is carefully covered over with reeds, which hide the snare, and 

 make it resemble a trap placed among the herbage. As the two fences 

 are often a mile in length, while the base of the triangle which they 

 define is nearly of the same dimensions, a company who form around 

 the hopo a circle of three to four miles in circumference, by gradually 

 drawing it closer, are certain to collect a great quantity of game. The 

 hunters direct by their cries the animals which they surround, and 

 cause them to reach the summit of the hopo. Men concealed at this 

 point then fling their javelins into the midst of the affrighted herd, 

 which, dashing headlong through the solitary opening it can find, in- 

 volves itself in the narrow alley leading to the ditch. The animals 

 fall in pell-mell, until the snare is filled with a living mass, which 

 enables the others to escape by passing over the bodies of the victims. 

 The spectacle is horrifying; the hunters, intoxicated by the pursuit, 

 and no longer controlling themselves, strike these graceful animals 

 with a delirious joy, while the poor creatures, crushed to the bottom 

 of the abyss beneath the weight of the dead and dying, raise from 

 time to time the pile of carcasses, by struggling, in the midst of their 

 agony, against the burden which suffocates them." 



Of the corral in which the Cingalese entraps the elephant, and of 

 the ingenious snares laid by the Malay or the Indian for the murder- 

 ous tiger, I shall speak hereafter. Between man and the carnivora it 

 was natural that a deadly war should be incessantly waged; but 

 humanity would seem to dictate towards the inoffensive herbivora a 

 less sanguinary hostility. 



