FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 25, 1908. 
6^o 
Chasirvg the Wild Elephant 
By SHIKARRI 
W E are all more or less familiar with 
the fact that elephants seldom breed 
in captivity, and that those required in 
India for riding, hauling and heavy work gen¬ 
erally, are animals captured from wild herds and 
tamed. Equally familiar to most people is the 
method by which they are caught, which differs 
not very widely from the means employed by 
primitive people everywhere, and which if we 
may trust the old books, was formerly in use 
among your Indians of North America. Briefly 
it is this: In a region where elephants are found 
a great inelosure is built with a large gate from 
which diverging fences stretch out for long dis¬ 
tances. When the time has come for capturing 
elephants, the trackers go on foot into the for¬ 
est and find where the animals are and then by 
means of a great number of the population of 
the district, who act as beaters, the herd is grad¬ 
ually pushed within the wings of the pen, and 
when fairly within these wings is rushed into 
the pen with a great noise and the gate is closed. 
Here for a time the elephants are left to quiet 
down and starve, and then tame elephants are 
introduced into the pen, and one by one the wild 
ones are captured and tied up to trees, and at 
last, when sufficiently subdued, are led away by 
their fellow elephants to go through the pre¬ 
liminary training which shall at last turn them 
into beasts of burden. 
This is the ordinary and familiar method of 
elephant hunting, but there is another method 
practiced among the forests that grow along the 
foot of the Himalayas, in a district ruled over— 
nominally—by the Maharajah of Balrampur, and 
extending about from Philibit to where the river 
Jumna leaves the hills. 
Here the wild elephant is hunted somewhat as 
in old times they used to hunt wild horses on 
the prairies of Western America, that is to say, 
they are run down or walked down, and then 
noosed and tied up. The interesting point is 
that the wild elephants are run down by domes¬ 
ticated elephants, of which there are sixty 
couples in the hunt. This sport, for it really is 
a sport, has been in existence for fifty years, 
and the “meets” .or occasions where formal hunts 
are made to capture the elephants, come about 
every five years. You can imagine that the oc¬ 
casion is one of interest. In the elephant camp 
are 120 great animals, their mahouts, attendants 
and others; the trackers who are to find the 
wild elephants, the beaters, some troops and of 
course plenty of horses. 
Long before the elephant camp is made, the 
trackers understand pretty thoroughly where the 
wild elephants are to be found, and when they 
have learned of this they keep constantly in 
touch with the herd. The hills which the wild 
animals range are rough and broken, covered 
with forests, and full of ravines and under¬ 
brush. Down toward the lower ground are flat 
river valleys and parks where but few trees 
grow, and again there may be great beds of reeds 
or high grass over which a man on an elephant 
can hardly see. To follow the wild elephants at 
top speed over rough ground and through tan¬ 
gled forests is difficult and discouraging for man 
and beast alike, and it is the business of the 
man who manages the hunt to so use his domes¬ 
tic animals and his beaters as to drive the wild 
ones out of the rough ground and down on the 
flats. 
When the time has come for setting out for 
an elephant chase, there is hurrying to and fro 
in hot haste. The elephants must be prepared 
for the chase, and as different classes have dif¬ 
ferent duties to perform, some are furnished 
with howdahs, some merely with pads on their 
backs, and some with the very lightest possible 
equipment. The beaters, armed with old-fash¬ 
ioned matchlocks or with any other noise-pro¬ 
ducing instrument, are sent off on foot to do 
their work, while the soldiers fall into line and 
march away, and* at last the elephants all start 
off and finally separating go off to their differ¬ 
ent stations. Each group of men has received 
instructions, and the effort is made to get around 
the herd, or the single elephant, as the case may 
be, and to prevent it from breaking back into 
the hills. 
At last, far away, is heard the distant sound 
of shouting and of firearms, and then comes a 
period of waiting, while you listen to discover 
by the direction of the sound whether the ele¬ 
phant has been driven out of the cover, or 
whether he has succeeded in turning about and 
breaking back through his enemies into the rough 
A HUNTING ELEPHANT’S EQUIPMENT AND CREW 
ground of the high hills. If he breaks back, th 
fun is all over for the present, but if the wil 
elephants work down the hills, then after the 
are safely away from the rough cover that the 
would like to reach, the effort is made to ru 
them down. 
They do not willingly start off in a race of th 
kind; they much prefer to hide, to move silent] 
among the trees and vanish into a thicket, c 
among the scrub of some nullah, or they ma 
get into some patch of high grass, or reed 
where it is impossible to see them, and whei 
the domestic elephants sometimes quite lose then 
selves. Sometimes they meet the wild ones, ar. 
fight with them, and if a' tame elephant ca 
hold a wild one, until another tame one com< 
up, the wild one’s capture is quite certain. The 
the driver of one of the tame elephants throv 
his noose over the wild one’s head. It is a lari 
noose and while a part of it rests on the back < 
the neck, another part falls down in front ai 
touches the elephant’s sensitive trunk which 1 
at once curls up out of harm’s way under h 
chin, so that the lower part of the loop fa] 
under his neck and the men who hold the end 
the rope can draw' it tight. 
Now comes an effort to tire out and discou 
age the captive. His enemies of his own ra 
butt into him, knock him on the sides, and t\ 
of them getting on his right and left lean 
against him and squeeze him. At last he giv 
up and ceases to resist, and presently his le 
are tied by men who slip under the bellies 
the domestic elephants and put ropes around t 
feet of the wild ones, and then the tame e 
phants push the captive along to some po: 
where he can be tied to a stout tree. This may 
THE BALRAMPUR KHEDDAH. 
