WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
to differ to so great an extent that the treatment that 
succeeds so well with the Asiatic species would fail with 
the African. My experience with the last-named species 
convinces me that they require a much greater amount of 
skill and attention than the more docile Indian species. 
The male African elephant we have in the Gardens, I 
believe, is the largest living example in Europe. He is 
amazingly intelligent, good-tempered, and tractable ; at 
the same time he has given me, and every one who has 
had anything to do with him, constant and increasing 
trouble and anxiety. First his enormous strength and 
restless disposition, together with his determined desire to 
be at large, has kept us day after day constantly employed 
altering, repairing, and making his house strong enough 
to keep him in it. Now, considering the ease with which 
we can obtain assistance at any moment of masons, 
carpenters, smiths, etc., with all the required materials at 
hand, and still find it difficult and troublesome, it occurred 
to me that the natives of Africa would be a little over- 
matched. At the same time, we must consider that the 
state of the interior of Africa is now likely to undergo a 
great change, and if the determined, bold, and reckless 
slave-hunters and slave-traders will turn their attention 
to the capture and training of the elephant in Africa, there 
can be no doubt they would succeed and render the 
country and themselves a great and everlasting good. In 
conclusion, I have no doubt whatever if the proper ap- 
pliances and means can be found to subdue the African 
elephant, he will be as tractable and useful as the Indian 
species. 
These animals may not be as docile as Asiatic, but we 
must not forget that they were regularly tamed and used 
by the ancients. That this was the kind used by the 
Carthaginians is evident from the form represented on 
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