282 
THE ELEPHANT. 
man. As he grew up, however, these gambols be¬ 
came dangerous. Thus, my friend was one day 
standing close to the side of a house, when the pet 
suddenly rushed up from behind, and before he had 
time to get out of the animal 5 s way, he found him¬ 
self immovably fixed against the wall; from which 
disagreeable position he had some difficulty in ex¬ 
tricating himself, and in the while, moreover, sus¬ 
tained considerable injury. 
I have never heard any satisfactory reason as¬ 
signed why the African elephant should not be 
domesticated as well as the Indian. It has been 
urged by some that he is of a more ferocious and 
less docile disposition; but, surely, many elephants 
engaged in the terrible battles between the Car¬ 
thaginians and the Homans, belonged to the African 
continent. Indeed, there can be no doubt that this 
animal was then obtained as near as Barbary. 
Jugurtha, the Numidian King, also employed it in 
his wars against the common enemy of the world. 
It is, moreover, recorded that during the Ptolemean 
dynasty in Egypt, great numbers were obtained 
from Ethiopia, which were used both to do battle 
and to draw chariots, &c. Even the Homans them¬ 
selves, after they had broken Hannibal’s power in 
the sanguinary engagement of Zama, employed the 
African elephant against the Macedonians. Several 
instances are mentioned, by ancient authors, of 
Asiatic and African elephants being engaged against 
each other,* but, singularly enough, they describe 
* At the battle of Magnesia, between the Romans and the Syrians, 
and in the contest between the third Ptolemy and Antiochus Theos, 
King of Syria. 
