THE ELEPHANTINE BRIGADE. 103 



the vineyards of Palestine and the forests of Lebanon. 

 Alexander had organized a brigade of elephants for 

 his army of the Indus, and these animals were after- 

 wards invariably used by the Greeks in war. Pyrrhus 

 took them to Italy, and the Carthaginians adopted 

 the idea from him. The elephants of the Asiatic 

 Greeks were brought from Hindostan. The Ptolemies, 

 like the Carthaginians, had elephant forests at their 

 own doors. Shooting boxes were built on the shores 

 of the Red Sea : elephant hunting became a royal 

 sport. The younger members of the herd were entrap- 

 ped in large pits, or driven into enclosures cunningly 

 contrived, were then tamed by starvation, shipped 

 off to Egypt, and drilled into beasts of war. On the 

 field of battle the African elephants, distinguished by 

 their huge flapping ears and their convex brows, 

 fought against the elephants of India, twisting their 

 trunks together, and endeavouring to gore one another 

 with their tusks. The Indian species is unanimously 

 described as the larger animal and the better soldier 

 of the two. 



The third Ptolemy made two brilliant campaigns. 

 In one, he overran Greek Asia, and brought back the 

 sacred images and vessels which had been carried off 

 by the Persians centuries before. In the other, he 

 made an Abyssinian expedition resembling the achieve- 

 ment of Napier. He landed his troops in Annesley 

 Bay, which he selected as his base of operations, and 

 completely subdued the mountaineers of the plateau, 

 carrying the Egyptian arms, as he boasted, where the 

 Pharaohs themselves had never been. But the policy 

 of the Ptolemies was, on the whole, a policy of peace. 

 Their wars were chiefly waged for the purpose of 

 obtaining timber for their fleet, and of keeping open 



