THE CORRALS OF CEYLON. 455 



post himself at a distance, and avoid exposure, while the victim is 

 saved from a cruel agony. 



Ivory is not the only valuable product which the elephant yields ; 

 his hide, very thick and very tenacious, can be utilized for many 

 purposes. The bucklers made of it by the negroes are scarcely less 

 precious than the shield of Ajax, which was formed of a bull's hide 

 sevenfold. The animal's flesh is also eaten, although too tough and 

 too strongly flavoured for an European palate. 



In India and the Indian islands the chase is carried on to make 

 prisoners, and not victims. Its most remarkable feature is the 

 important and almost indispensable assistance which the tame 

 elephants render man against their wild brethren, zealously aiding to 

 reduce them into slavery; now serving as baits to beguile and attract, 

 and now as gendarmes, or rather as convict-warders, to compel their 

 obedience. In Ceylon, elephant-hunting is almgst an affair of 

 State ; it is like a national war, in which the Government appeals 

 to the goodwill of the population generally, both Europeans and 

 natives. 



As soon as it is known that a troop or horde of elephants has 

 assembled in a forest, the natives set to work, and with trunks of trees 

 fixed in the ground and supported by transversal bars and buttresses, 

 construct a vast palisaded enclosure, or corral, whose entrance forms 

 a kind of gullet so narrow that the animals can only enter one by 

 one, and once drawn into it are unable to return. This being accom- 

 plished, a thousand men, Europeans or Cingalese, surround the forest ; 

 they enclose the herd in a circle which incessantly contracts, and 

 drive them before them by waving their torches, and keeping up a 

 grand tintamarre of tamtams, trumpets, and musket-shots. The 

 frightened animals can find no other avenue of escape than the 

 entrance to the corral, where are placed, moreover, as an attraction, 

 some females trained to act as decoys. 



When all, or nearly all the herd, has been driven into the 

 enclosure, the entrance is strongly and firmly closed with ropes and 

 beams. The elephants, perceiving themselves caught in a trap, 



