456 THE ELEPHANT TAMED. 



naturally endeavour to effect their escape by the way they entered. 

 A sufficient number of hunters then place themselves along each side 

 of the avenue, and a few, mounted on the decoys, are stationed at its 

 extremity. The moment that one of the captives has got entangled 

 in it, his retreat is cut off by means of thick planks piled across the 

 palisade, and he is allowed to make his way towards the entrance, 

 which is also blocked up. There he encounters the decoys, which force 

 him, by striking him with their trunks, to fall back against a neigh- 

 bouring tree, to which he is speedily bound with ropes. This first 

 operation accomplished, the females are led back to the corral, and 

 the game is renewed, until all the animals have undergone the same 

 fate, and each of them is thralled to a tree in the forest. Nothing 

 now remains but to accustom them to a life of servitude ; and this 

 is done by depriving them of food for a short time, then administering 

 it in small quantifies, and proceeding from the articles they like the 

 least to those they prize the most. The privation at first enfeebles 

 them, and consequently calms their irritation, while they feel the 

 greater gratitude afterwards for the alleviation which is so readily 

 afforded them. This gratitude, and, still more, the dependaiice in 

 which they find themselves upon man, who at his supreme pleasure 

 grants or refuses their food, renders them in a few days docile and 

 tractable. Thus their docility, and the important services which they 

 render, mainly arise in the overmastering fear which man inspires in 

 them. 



" It is remarkable," says Boitard, " that the elephant is not and 

 never has been a domestic animal, but a captive who only obeys 

 through terror. However tame he may be, he never fails to escape 

 into the woods to resume his savage life if an opportunity arises. 

 The need, therefbre, arises that on a long march he shall have his 

 driver, or mahoud, on his back, to guide him, threaten him, and 

 prevent him from taking to flight. His love of liberty is as great as 

 that of the wildest animals, and in the female elephants it even over- 

 powers maternal love ; therefore, when suckling their young, they 

 are never released from their chains, for experience has proved that 



