252 WILD ANIMALS. 



article written in tte Times of May 25, 1875 :— " By tlie laat 

 accounts from Ceylon we hear that the Governor, with the full 

 concurrence of the Secretary of State, has issued a prohibition 

 against the destruction of elephants. This has already caused 

 disappointment to sundry sporting travellers, and it is as well that 

 it should be generally known, that others who are intent on the 

 slaughter of big game may direct their steps elsewhere. The 

 wholesale and wanton destruction of these useful and intelHgent 

 animals, which has too long prevailed, has at length aroused 

 the attention of the Colonial Government. They ought to be 

 largely employed in public works. Their strength, which enables 

 them to draw stones of huge magnitude, and to place them with ease 

 wherever required, renders elephant work far more valuable and 

 substantial than that of the weak Indian labourers employed on 

 the roads and irrigation works in Ceylon. It is particularly in the 

 construction of bridges that the value of elephants is manifest. 

 Nothing can be more interesting than to watch the docility and 

 intelligence of these great creatures in the performance of their 

 task, now dragging, now pushing, to the exact spot, gigantic 

 stones, and placing them in their appointed position with the 

 accuracy of a mason. 



" Of late, unfortunately, the strength of the elephant department 

 in Ceylon has dwindled down to the half of its full complement, 

 and from every Province where works of any importance were 

 going on demands come in for the assistance of elephants, but in 

 vain. Formerly well-trained elephants were not diflScult to pur- 

 chase; many were owned by private persons, but still more by 

 the representatives of the Buddhist temples, who let them out for 

 hire when not wanted for religious processions. Now none of any 

 value can be procured. The native headmen report that elephants 

 are disappearing, and the wanton massacres of them in those pai-ts 

 of the island where there is sufficient population to capture them 

 by kraal have rendered it unlikely that the public want can be 

 supplied by this means. No doubt they can be supplied by the 

 employment of elephant-catchers, but the cruelties practised on 

 the wretched animals by this process, in which hardly one in 

 three survives the tying-up operations after the elephants are 



