1 92 HISTORY OF QUADRUPEDS. 



ployed Elephants in their wars : Porus opposed the 

 passage of Alexander, over the Hydaspes, with 

 eighty-five of them. M. de Buffon imagines, that 

 it was some of the Elephants taken by that 

 monarch, and afterwards transported into Greece, 

 which were employed by Pyrrhus against the 

 Romans. Since the invention of fire-arms, the 

 Elephant has been of little use in deciding the con- 

 tests of hostile nations ; for being terrified with the 

 flash of the powder and the report that immediately 

 succeeds, they are soon thrown into confusion, and 

 then become dangerous to their employers. They 

 are now chiefly used for the purposes of labour, or 

 magnificent parade. 



The Indian princes, in their travels, are attended 

 by hundreds of these animals : some are employed 

 to convey the ladies who compose the seraglio, in 

 latticed cages made for that purpose, and covered 

 with branches of trees ; whilst others transport 

 immense quantities of baggage, with which the 

 sovereigns of the East are always accompanied in 

 their marches from one place to another. They are 

 likewise made use of as the dreadful instruments of 

 executing condemned criminals a task which they 

 perform with great dexterity. At the word of com- 

 mand, they break the limbs of the criminal with 

 their trunks ; they sometimes trample him to death, 

 or impale him on their enormous tusks, just as they 

 are directed by their more barbarous keeper. 



It is a singular circumstance in the history of 

 this extraordinary animal, that in a state of subjec- 

 tion, it is unalterably barren; and though it has 

 been reduced under the dominion of man for ages, 

 it has never been known to breed ; as if it had a 

 proper sense of its degraded condition, and ob- 



