Iviii 



allowance of jaggery or sugarcane. Althougli the elephant is 

 naturally of a mild and even timid nature he may be trained to 

 exhibitions of ferocity and cruelty against men or other animals 

 and even against other elephants. The state executions in Ceylon, 

 and often in other parts of India, were performed by elephants. 



An elephant enraged is a fearful object ; his bellowings are 

 terrific. He charges his enemy with resistless force, seizes him 

 with his trunk, and dashes him against the ground, tramples him 

 under foot, or crushes him beneath the knees, sometimes endea- 

 vouring to transfix him with the strong and pointed tusks, although 

 this is a matter of difficulty on account of their direction which 

 ill adapts them as organs of oftence. When less excited, he has 

 been known to hurl stones and other such missiles at the object 

 of his dislike, and in opposing one another, elephants, watching 

 their opportunity, charge and upset the enemy on his side. They 

 have a curious dislike for small animals, such as dogs, and in an 

 encampment this dislike ought to be respected. Tennent attri- 

 butes this to fear lest the dog should attack the feet, organs of 

 which the elephant is most careful. It is well known to be dan- 

 gerous to encounter elephants by night, for they have a most 

 acute power of smell, and hear with facility. They make sounds 

 differing under different circumstances, indicative of rage, appre- 

 hension, satisfaction, and other feelings, and the mahouts learn to 

 'discriminate between these. 



One of the few vices of elephants is "bolting" — generally 

 the result of fear. Sometimes blind-folding sufiBces to check the 

 flight but Hood urges the advisability of putting on the hind leg 

 of an elephant liable to bolt a Bhundhun, the other end of which 

 should be lightly attached to the guddee, so that in the event of 

 the animal trying to rush off into the jungle the end of the chain 

 can be easily disengaged and thrown down on the ground when 

 it will lap round some tree or stump and arrest the flight. 



