218 
GREAT ELEPHANT. 
Great care is taken by the grandees of India in 
the management and decoration of their Ele- 
phants; which, after their daily feeding, bathing, 
oiling, and rubbing, are often painted about the 
ears and head with various colours, and their 
tusks are surrounded with rings of gold or silver; 
and when employed in processions, &c. they are 
clothed in the most sumptuous trappings. 
By the ancient Indians they were much used in 
war; and we are told that Porus, the Indian mo- 
narch, opposed the passage of Alexander over the 
Hydaspes with eighty-five Elephants. Bufl'on also 
imagines that some of the Elephants which were 
taken by Alexander, and sent into Greece, were 
employed by Pyrrhus against the Romans. The 
Romans received their J^lephants from Africa, and 
that in great numbers; since it appears that 
Pompey entertained the people with a show of 
eighteen in the space of five days; which were all 
destroyed in conflicts with armed men. Fifty lions 
were also exhibited in the same space. The cry- 
ing and distress of the wounded Elephants is said 
to have excited much commiseration among the 
Roman people. It is highly remarkable, if true, 
that the young Elephants do not attach them- 
selves to their dams in particular, but suck indis- 
criminately the females of the whole herd. Mr. 
Bruce, however, in his travels, gives a particular 
description of the more than common attachment 
of a young Elephant to its dam, which it endea- 
voured to defend, when wounded, and with much 
fierceness assaulted the invaders. The young Ele- 
