CAPTURE OF ELEPHANTS. 



71/ 



cured to another tree in front, and the whole four feet having been thus entangle I 

 the capture is completed. A shelter is then run up with branches to protect him from 

 the sun, and the hunters proceed to build a wigwam for themselves in front of their 

 prisoner, kindling their fires for cooking, and making all the necessary arrangements 

 for remaining day and night on the spot, to await the process of subduing and taming 

 his rage. 



Picketed to the ground like Gulliver by the Lilliputians, the elephant soon ceases 

 to struggle, and what with the exhaustion of ineffectual resistance, the constant annoy- 

 ance of smoke, and the liberal supply of food and water with which he is indulged, 

 a few weeks generally suffice to subdue his spirit, when his keepers at length venture 

 to remove him to their own village, or to the seaside for shipment to India. No part 

 of the hunter's performances exhibits greater skill and audacity than this first forced 

 march of the recently captured elephant. As he is still too morose to submit to be 

 ridden, and it would be equally impossible to lead or drive him by force, the ingenuity 

 of the captors is displayed in alternately irritating and eluding his attacks, but always 

 so attracting his attention, as to allure him along in the direction in which they want 

 him to go. 



My limits forbid me entering upon a detailed account of the great elephant-hunts 

 of India and Ceylon, where whole herds are driven into an inclosure and entrapped 

 in one vast decoy. This may truly be called the sublime of sport, for nowhere is it 

 conducted on a grander scale, or so replete with thrilling emotions. The keddah or 

 corral, as the enclosure is called, is constructed in the depth of the forests, several 

 hundred paces long, and half as broad, and of a strength commensurate to the power 

 of the animals it is intended to secure. Slowly and cautiously the doomed herds are 

 driven onwards from a vast circuit by thousands of beaters in narrowing circles to the 

 fatal gate, which is instantly closed behind them, and then the hunters, rushing with 

 wild clamor and blazing torches to the stockade, complete the terror of the bewildered 

 animals. Trumpeting and screaming with rage and fear, they rush round the corral at 

 a rapid pace, but all their attempts to force the powerful fence are vain, for wherever 

 they assail the palisade, they are met with glaring flambeaus and bristling spears, and 

 on whichever side they approach, they are repulsed with shouts and discharge of mus- 

 ketry. For upwards of an hour their frantic efforts are continued with unabated en- 

 ergy, till at length, stupified, exhausted, and subdued by apprehension and amaze- 

 ment, they form themselves into a circle, and stand motionless under the dark shade 

 of the trees in the middle of the corral. The artist, on the page 470 of this volume, 

 has given a picture of a herd of captured elephants thus " tied up." 



To secure the entrapped animals, the assistance of tame elephants or decoys is neces- 

 sary, who, by occupying their attention and masking the movements of the nooser, give 

 him an opportunity of slipping one by one a rope round their feet until their capture is 

 completed. The quickness of eye displayed by the men in watching the slightest move- 

 ment of an elephant, and their expertness in flinging the noose over its foot, and at- 

 taching it firmly before the animal can tear it off with its trunk, are no less admirable 

 than the rare sagacity of the decoys, who display the most perfect conception of the 

 object to be attained, and the means of accomplishing it. Thus Sir Emerson Tennent 

 saw more than once, during a great elephant hunt which he witnessed in 1847, that 

 when one of the wild elephants was extending his trunk, and would have intercepteii 



