186 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chai\ VI. 
some sudden impulse ; but at last the vain strife sub- 
sided, and the poor animal remained perfectly motion- 
less, the image of exhaustion and despair. 
Meanwhile Eanghanie presented himself in front of 
the governor's stage to claim the accustomed largesse 
for tying the first elephant. He was rewarded by a 
shower of rupees, and retired to resume his perilous 
duties in the corral. 
The rest of the herd were now in a state of pitiable 
dejection, and pressed closely together as if under a 
sense of common misfortune. For the most part they 
stood at rest in a compact body, fretful and uneasy. 
At intervals one more impatient than the rest would 
move out a few steps to reconnoitre ; the others would 
follow at first slowly, then at a quicker pace, and at last 
the whole herd would rush off furiously to renew the 
often-baffled attempt to storm the stockade. 
There was a strange combination of the sublime and 
the ridiculous in these abortive onsets ; the appearance 
of prodigious power in their ponderous limbs, coupled 
with the almost ludicrous shuffle of their clumsy gait, 
and the fury of their apparently resistless charge, con- 
verted in an instant into timid retreat. They rushed 
madly down the enclosure, their backs arched, their 
tails extended, their ears spread, and their trunks raised 
high above their heads, trumpeting and uttering shrill 
screams, yet when one step further would have dashed 
the opposing fence into fragments, they stopped short 
on a few white rods being pointed at them through the 
paling 1 ; and, on catching the derisive shouts of the 
1 The fact of the elephant ex- relates, that in order to inculcate 
hibiting timidity, on having a long contempt for want of courage in 
rod pointed towards him, was the elephant, they were introduced 
known to the Eomans ; and Pliny, into the circus during the triumph 
quoting from the annals of Piso, of Metelltjs, after the conquest of 
