Chap. V.] 



THE ELEPHANT. 



165 



which they kindle fires, and cut footpaths through the 

 jungle, to enable the watchers to communicate and 

 combine. All this is performed in cautious silence 

 and by slow approaches, to avoid alarming the herd. 

 A fresh circle nearer to the keddak is then formed in 

 the same way, and into this the elephants are admitted 

 from the first one, the hunters following from behind, 

 and lighting new fires around the newly inclosed space. 

 Day after day the process is repeated ; till the drove 

 having been brought sufficiently close to make the 

 final rush, the whole party close in from all sides, and 

 with drums, guns, shouts, and flambeaux, force the 

 terrified animals to enter the fatal enclosure, when the 

 passage is barred behind them, and retreat rendered im- 

 possible. 



Their efforts to escape are repressed by the crowd, 

 who drive them back from the stockade with spears 

 and flaming torches ; and at last compel them to pass 

 on into the second enclosure. Here they are detained 

 for a short time, and their feverish exhaustion relieved 

 by free access to water ; — until at last, being tempted 

 by food, or otherwise induced to trust themselves in the 

 narrow outlet, they are one after another made fast by 

 ropes, passed in through the palisade ; and picketed in 

 the adjoining woods to enter on their course of syste- 

 matic training. 



These arrangements vary in different districts of 

 Bengal ; and the method adopted in Ceylon differs in 

 many essential particulars from them all ; the Keddah, 

 or, as it is here called, the corral or Jcorahl 1 (from the 



1 It is thus spelled by Wolf, in household word in South America, 

 his Life and Adventures, p. 144. and especially in La Plata, to 

 Corral is at the present day a designate an enclosure for cattle. 



M 3 



