116 
THE ELEPHANT OF INDIA. 
animal to fall and become a captive. He is 
afterwards led to his picket, sometimes with the 
utmost difficulty and danger, but is almost always 
at last overcome, temporary strangulation being 
again resorted to. 
They are also taken in pitfalls, made soft at 
the bottom, in which they are allowed to remain, 
and starved into subjection. When sufficiently 
subdued to come out, they are relieved by the pit 
being gradually filled up, on which the animal, as 
if aware of the object, raises his feet, preventing 
himself from being buried, and patiently waits 
until he can step out. This method, however, 
is the most disliked, for the prodigious weight 
of the animal falling, often maims or disfigures 
him externally, or gives inward bruises which he 
feels when afterwards put to hard work.* 
Among the ancients, Elephants became known, 
and were used in the wars of the Greeks and 
Romans ; they were also often exhibited at their 
public shows and triumphs, and at their contests 
of wild animals. They were most probably pro- 
cured both from India and Africa, as the distinc- 
tive character, in the form of the head and size of 
the ears, is plainly to be traced on some of the 
representations of ancient sculpture. The natives 
Williamson’s Oriental Field Sports, i. p. 147. 
