162 
THE STORY OF THE ELEPHANT. 
person to pass either way, who did not provide him with a similar banquet. 
The pass formed one of the principal thoroughfares to> the capital, and the 
elephant, taking up a formidable position at the entrance, obliged every pas¬ 
senger to pay tribute. It soon became generally known that a donation of 
jaggery would insure a safe conduct through the guarded portal, and no one 
presumed to 1 attempt the passage without the expected offering. 
No animal is more ferociously destructive than an infuriated elephant; 
even in the domesticated state, they are known to be gratified with carnage, 
and hence they have been frequently employed as executioners by the despots 
of the East. One of the Epirote elephants, furious from pain, shook off his 
driver, and rushing back upon the phalanx which Pyrrhus had formed with 
closer ranks than usual, crushed and destroyed a great number of soldiers be¬ 
fore any remedy could be found for such a disaster. 
On a previous occasion the delight of the elephant in carnage had been 
