Chaf. vit.] 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, u e56i|av," 

 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. 

 Phile mentions the same fact, Be 

 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 Grulf 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 Rationale. M. 

 Reinaud, 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." — Reinaud, Memoire sur 

 rinde, anterieurement au milieu du 

 XI e siecle, dlapres les ecrivains 

 arabes, persans et ckinois. 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 



