see the lions, leopards, tigers, and elephants fight with each other*." These exhibitions were varied in every mode that an ingenious cruelty could devise. "Some elephants," says Covert, "fight with wild horses, six horses to an elephant, which he kills with clasping his trunk about their necks, and, pulling them to him, breaks their necks with his teeth." It is not uncommon to fight elephants with tigers. The accounts of the courage displayed by the elephant on these occasions are somewhat contradictory. At Saigon, in Cochin-China, a combat of this nature was exhibited before Mr. Crawfurd, where the tiger was muzzled and his claws torn out, and yet the first elephant was wounded and put to flight. The tiger was at length killed by successive tosses upon the tusks of his adversaries; and when he was perfectly dead, an elephant seized the carcase with his proboscis, and threw it to a distance of thirty feet. Father Tachard, on the contrary, saw a similar fight at Siam, in which the tiger was wounded and driven away upon the first onset. These differences in conduct doubtless arise, in some degree, from differences in the tempers of the individual animals. At the lionfight at Warwick, one lion played with the dogs that attacked him, while the other destroyed them in an instant. Different degrees of training may also produce considerable varieties of behaviour in the elephant, when he encounters an enemy. A strange terror is always the most formidable to him. "An English dog seized an elephant by the trunk, and kept his hold so fast, that the elephant, having tossed him in the air for some time, at last swung him off, but did not care to come near him a second time. This being told to the Mogul, enhanced the reputa

*Albert de Mandelsloe's Travels.

tion of the English dogs; they were carried about in palankines along with his majesty: and he fed them himself with a pair of silver tongs made for Pliny tells us of two remarkable

Elephant baited.

dogs that were given by the king of Albania to Alexander the Great (Strabo says they were Indian dogs), one of which vanquished a lion and afterwards an elephant. According to the naturalist the dog was most alarmed at the largest enemy. His hair stood up, he barked in a fearful manner, but at length rushed at the enormous animal, attacking him on every side, and fairly wearing him out by the rapidity of his assaults. The elephant at length fell exhausted on the ground*.

It is unnecessary to offer any further instances of the depraved taste which excites a generous and docile animal to such encounters; nor shall we discuss whether he possesses a courageous temper, because he often shrinks from contests which are evidently revolting to his nature. The elephant is a peaceful animal; his strength enables him to defend himself against ordinary enemies, but he has no disposition to attack. The reason is evident. He subsists upon

vegetable food, and therefore he has neither the desire to destroy life which belongs to the carnivorous animals, nor the means of gratifying such a desire, The cruelty which forces him into such combats is, for this reason, greater than that which excites animals to fight that are naturally pugnacious; but, in either case, the principle of brutality is the same.

It is agreeable to turn from scenes which are hateful to the quadruped, to behold him engaged in peaceful pageants which afford him gratification. Associated with human slaves in administering to the pomp of Asiatic despotism, the elephant is not only reconciled to captivity, but is proud and satisfied. He is pampered and caressed-he has little labour to perform

his chains are gilded. He serves a tyrant, but he does not feel the tyranny; and he is happier than

*Plinii Hist. Nat., lib. viii. c. 40.

the nabob whom he carries, for he has no dread of the power which obeys no law but its own caprice, when it raises to a throne, or degrades to a dun*. geon

In British India the elephant is rarely seen upon occasions of ceremony, except at the courts of those native princes who still possess any independent authority. An adequate idea of the splendour derived from their employment in a procession may be obtained from a brilliant panorama of Calcutta now (1830) exhibiting in London. Their general use at Calcutta, or within five miles of it, is, however, prohibited, on account of the frequent accidents which they occasion by frightening horses t. In the hideous ceremonials of Juggernaut elephants are used. Five elephants precede the car of the idol," bearing towering flags, dressed in crimson caparisons, and having bells hanging to their caparison ‡." When the two sons of Tippoo were received as hostages by Lord Cornwallis, they were each mounted on an elephant, richly caparisoned, and seated in a silver howdah §." At Vizier Ally's wedding, in 1795, "the procession was grand beyond conception; it consisted of about twelve hundred elephants, richly caparisoned, drawn up in a regular line, like a regiment of soldiers. About one hundred elephants in the centre had howdahs, or castles covered with silver: in the midst of these appeared the nabob, mounted on an uncom

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The nabob "was called to court, kept there, or translated into another government whenever the ministry thought these changes necessary; and there was a time when they were so frequent, that a new nabob left Delhi riding, contrary to the usual manner, with his back turned to the head of his elephant, and gave for a reason that he was looking out for his successor."Orme's Hindostan.

† Heber, i. p. 37.

Mill's British India, book vi. chap. 4.

Buchanan.