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CHAP. VII. 
THE ELEPHANT. 
Conduct in Captivity. 
The idea prevailed in ancient times, and obtains even at 
the present day, that the Indian elephant surpasses that 
of Africa in sagacity and testability, and consequently 
in capacity for training, so as to render its services more 
available to man. There does not appear to me to be 
sufficient ground for this conclusion. It originated, in 
all probability, in the first impressions created by the 
accounts of the elephant brought back by the Greeks 
after the Indian expedition of Alexander, and above all 
by the descriptions of Aristotle, whose knowledge of the 
animal was derived exclusively from the East. A long 
interval elapsed before the elephant of Africa, and its 
capabilities, became known in Europe. The first ele- 
phants brought to Greece by Antipater, were from India, 
as were also those introduced by Pyrrhus into Italy. 
Taught by this example, the Carthaginians undertook to 
employ African elephants in war. Jugurtha led them 
against Metellus, and Juba against CaBsar ; but from in- 
experienced and deficient training, they proved less 
effective than the elephants of India 1 , and the historians 
1 Armandi, Hist. Milit. des Me- on the coins of Alexander, and the 
phants, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2. It is an Seleucidse invariably exhibit the 
interesting fact, noticed by An- characteristics of the Indian type, 
mandi, that the elephants figured whilst those on Eoman medals 
