Chap. VII.] THE ELEPHANT. 
211 
probable that the earliest attempts to take and train 
the elephant, were with a view to military uses, and 
that the art was perpetuated in later times .to gratify 
the pride of the eastern kings, and sustain the pomp 
of their processions. 
An impression prevails even to the present day, that 
the process of training is tedious and difficult, and the 
reduction of a full-grown elephant to obedience, slow 
and troublesome in the extreme. 1 In both particulars, 
however, the contrary is the truth. The training as it 
prevails in Ceylon is simple, and the conformity and 
obedience of the animal are developed with singular 
i. 17. Frequent allusions to the 
use of elephants in war occur in 
both books ; and in chap. vi. 34, it 
is stated that "to provoke the ele- 
phants to fight they showed them 
the blood of grapes and of' mulber- 
ries." The term showed, "e8e[£cw," 
might be thought to imply that the 
animals were enraged by the sight 
of the wine and its colour, but in 
the Third Book of Maccabees, in 
the Greek Septuagint, various 
other passages show that wine, on 
such occasions, was administered 
to the elephants to render them 
furious. — Mace. v. 2, 10, 45. 
Phiee mentions the same fact, JDe 
Elephante, i. 145. 
There is a very curious account 
of the mode in which the Arab 
conquerors of Scinde, in the 9th 
and 10th centuries, equipped the 
elephant for war; which being 
written with all the particularity 
of an eye-witness, bears the impress 
of truth and accuracy, Massoudi, 
who was born in Bagdad at the 
close of the 9th century, travelled 
in India in the year a.d. 913, and 
visited the Gulf of Cambay, the 
coast of Malabar, and the Island of 
Ceylon : — from a larger account of 
his journeys he compiled a sum- 
mary under the title of " Moroudj 
al-dzeheb," or the " Golden Mea- 
dows," the MS. of which is now in 
the Bibliotheque Nationale. M. 
Beinatjd, in describing this manu- 
script says, on its authority, "The 
Prince of Mensura, whose do- 
minions lay south of the Indus, 
maintained eighty elephants train- 
ed for war, each of which bore in 
his trunk a bent cymeter (car- 
thel), with which he was taught to 
cut and thrust at all confronting 
him. The trunk itself was effect- 
ually protected by a coat of mail, 
and the rest of the body enveloped 
in a covering composed jointly of 
iron and horn. Other elephants 
were employed in drawing chariots, 
carrying baggage, and grinding 
forage, and the peformance of all 
bespoke the utmost intelligence and 
docility." — Beinaud, Memoire sur 
I'Inde, anterieurement au milieu du 
XI e siecle, d'aprfe les ecrivains 
arabes, persans et chinois. Paris, 
m.d.ccc. xlix. p. 215. See Spren- 
ger's English Translation of 
Massoudi, vol. i. p. 383. 
1 Broderip, Zoological Becrea- 
tions, p. 226. 
p 2 
