AFRICAN ELEPHANT. 
283 
the latter as very inferior, both in height and 
strength, to the Indian, which is the very reverse of 
the fact. 
In those days, the African elephant appears, from 
all accounts, to have been quiet and tractable, and 
it is, therefore, not very likely that his character 
should be different at present. “What he did 
in a state of nature two thousand years ago, he 
does now. His natural habits, as well as those 
of every living thing, are derived from his organ¬ 
ization ; his structure is the best adapted to the 
necessities of his existence; and, as the structure 
is invariably the same in the same species, we 
may conclude that the natural habits are equally 
in accordance.” It would, perhaps, be more 
reasonable to attribute the popular belief as to 
the incapacity of the African elephant for a do¬ 
mesticated and disciplined life, to the “revolu¬ 
tions of civilization.” After a certain time, when 
means had been found to oppose the formidable 
power of the elephant, these animals became no 
longer useful for the purposes of war; even the 
demand for them for the Eornan Amphitheatre 
wore away; the consequence of which was that 
the process whereby the Egyptians, the Numi- 
dians, and the Carthaginians had been accustomed 
to tame and train them, generally became lost.* 
The incursions of the Arabs into Northern Africa, 
to whose rapid movements these animals would 
* According to Losinus, who travelled in the sixth century, the 
Ethiopians had then already lost the art of training the elephant for 
war. 
