feet. They are fifty or sixty years before they arrive at their full growth; and their natural life is about one hundred and twenty years. Their price increases with their merit during a course of education. Some, for their extraordinary qualities, become in a manner invaluable; when these are purchased, no compensation induces a wealthy owner to part with them.

The skin of the elephant is generally a dark grey, sometimes almost black; the face frequently painted with a variety of colours; and the abundance and splendour of his trappings add much to his consequence. In India the Mogul princes allow five men and a boy to take care of each elephant; the chief of them, called the mahawut rides upon his neck to guide him; another sits upon the rump, and assists in battle; the rest supply him with food and water, and perform the necessary services. Elephants bred to war, and well disciplined, will stand firm against a volley of musquetry, and never give way unless severely wounded. One of these animals has been seen with upwards of thirty bullets in the fleshy parts of his body, perfectly recovered from his wounds. All are not equally docile, and when an enraged elephant retreats from battle, nothing can withstand his fury: the driver having no longer a command, friends and foes are involved in undistinguished ruin.

The elephants in the army of Antiochus were provoked to fight by shewing them the blood of grapes and mulberries. The history of the Maccabees informs as, that "to every elephant they appointed a thousand men, armed with coats of mail, and five hundred horsemen of the best; these were ready at every occasion; wherever the beast was, and whithersoever he went, they went also; and upon the elephants were strong towers of wood, filled with armed men, besides the Indian that ruled them."

Elephants in peace and war know their duty, and are more obedient to the word of command than many rational beings. It is said they can travel, on an emergency, two hundred miles in forty-eight hours; but will hold out for a month, at the rate of forty or fifty miles a day, with cheerfulness and alacrity. "I performed," observes Forbes in his Oriental Memoirs, "many long journeys upon an elephant nothing could exceed the sagacity, docility, and affection of this noble quadruped. If I stopped to enjoy

a prospect, he remained immoveable until my sketch was finished; if I wished for ripe mangoes growing out of the common reach, he selected the most fruitful branch, and breaking it off with his trunk, offered it to the driver for the company in the houdah, accepting of any part given to himself with a respectful salem, by raising his trunk three times above his head, in the manner of the oriental obeisance, and as often did he express his thanks by a murmuring noise. When a bough obstructed the houdah, he twisted his trunk around it, and, though of considerable magnitude, broke it off with ease, and often gathered a leafy branch, either to keep off the flies, or as a fan to agitate the air around him, by waving it with his trunk; he generally paid a visit at the tent-door during breakfast, to procure sugar-candy or fruit, and be cheered by the encomiums and caresses he deservedly met with: no spaniel could be more innocently playful, nor fonder of those who noticed him, than this docile animal, which on particular occasions appeared conscious of his exaltation above the brute creation."

However surprising may be the docility of this noble animal, when tamed, its sagacity, in a savage state even, is a subject of still greater wonder, as is evidenced by the following narrative extracted from Lichtenstein's travels in Southern Africa. Two individuals, named Muller and Prince, being engaged, in the Caffre territory, where these animals abound, in an elephant hunt, discovered the footsteps of a very large elephant, and soon espied the animal himself on the declivity of a naked and widely outstretched

hill.

It is a rule, when an elephant is thus found, to endeavour to get above him on the hill, to the end that, in case of necessity, the hunter may flee to the summit, whither the animal, on account of the unwieldiness of its body, cannot follow him fast. This precaution was neglected by Prince, who shot too soon, while they were yet at too great a distance, and the elephant on higher ground than himself and his companion. The wounded animal rushed down towards them, while they endeavoured to push their horses on, and gain the brow of the hill. Being able, on favorable ground, to run as fast as a horse, he soon came up with them, and struck with his tusk at Muller's thigh, he being the nearest of the two fugitives. Muller now considered

his fate as inevitable, as he endeavoured in vain to set his almost exhausted horse into a gallop, and saw the animal, after giving a violent snort, raise his powerful trunk above his head. It was not, however, on himself, but on his companion, that the stroke fell; and in an instant he saw him snatched from his horse, and thrown up into the air. Scarcely in his senses, he continued his flight, and only in some degree recovered himself by finding Prince's horse running by his side without a rider: then looking back, he saw his unfortunate friend on the ground, and the elephant stamping upon him with the utmost fury. He was now convinced, not without the greatest astonishment, that the sagacious animal had distinguished which of the two it was who wounded him, and wreaked his whole vengeance upon him alone. Muller, on this, went in search of the rest of the party, that they might collect the mangled remains of their companion, and bury them; but they were soon put to flight by the elephant rushing again from a neighbouring thicket, to vent his wrath once more upon the corpse, already so dreadfully mangled. While he was busied in doing this, however, he was attacked by the dis persed hunters, and sacrificed to the manes of his unfortunate victim.

The contrivances for taking elephants are various; but the most curious are those employed by the natives of Ceylon, where the finest race of these animals is found. They sometimes surround the woods in bands, and drive with lighted torches, amid the clamour of trumpets, the discharge of fire-arms, and noises of every description, the elephants which inhabit them, till they are at length entrapped into a particular spot surrounded with palisades, so as to prevent all escape. At other times a kind of decoy, or female elephant, is sent out in order to induce some of the males to pursue her, who are by that means secured. When a wild elephant is taken, it still remains to reduce it to a quiet state, and to tame it, in order to its being made useful: this is effected by throwing ropes round the legs and body, which are well secured; and two tame elephants, properly instructed, are placed on each side. The captive animal finds himself gradually so fatigued by his ineffectual struggles, and so much soothed by the caresses occasionally given by the trunks of the tame elephants, by the food from

time to time presented to him, and the water with which he is refreshed by its being poured over him, that in the space of a few days, unless more than unusually untractable in his nature, he becomes completely tame, and is placed with the rest of the domesticated troop. Sometimes, in order more effectually to subdue them, the elephants are deprived of sleep for a considerable time.

The anecdotes recording the sagacity, and also the amiable qualities of the elephant, are numerous. Of these the following are selected as highly interesting. In Delhi, an elephant passing along the streets, put his trunk into a tailor's shop, where several persons were at work. One of them pricked the end of his trunk with his needle; the beast passed on; but at the next dirty puddle filled his trunk with water, returned to the shop, and spurting it. among those who had offended him, spoiled their work.— At Adsmeer, an elephant which often passed through the bazar, or market, as he went by a certain herb-woman, always received from her a mouthful of greens: at length he was seized with one of his periodical fits of rage, broke his fetters, and, running through the market, put the croud to flight, and, among others, this woman, who, in her haste, forgot a little child she had brought with her. The animal recollecting the spot where his benefactress was wont to sit, took up the infant gently on his trunk, and placed it in safety on a stall before a neighbouring house.At the same place, another elephant, in his madness, killed his cornac, or governor : the wife, witnessing the misfortune, took her two children, and flung them before the elephant, saying, "now you have destroyed their father, you may as well put an end to their lives and mine." It instantly stopped, relented, took the eldest of the boys, placed him on his neck, adopted him for his governor, and never afterwards would permit any other person to mount him. A painter was desirous of drawing the elephant kept in the menagerie at Versailles, in an uncommon attitude, namely, that of holding his trunk raised up in the air, with his mouth open. The painter's boy, in order to keep the animal in this posture, threw fruit into his mouth; but as the lad frequently deceived him, and made an offer only of throwing the fruit, he grew angry; and, as if he had known that the painter's intention of drawing him was

the cause of the affront thus offered, instead of avenging himself on the lad, he turned his resentment on the master, and taking up a quantity of water in his trunk, threw it on the paper on which the painter was drawing, and spoiled it.

THE ORANG OUTANG.

THIS singular animal, likewise called the satyr, great ape, or man of the woods, which has, on account of its near approximation to the human species, so strongly exeited the attention of naturalists, is a native of the warmer parts of Africa and India, where it resides principally in woods, on the fruits of which it feeds, like the other species of the simia race. Such of these animals as have been imported into Europe have rarely exceeded the height of two or three feet, and have therefore been supposed to be young; those full grown being said to be at least six feet in height. The general colour of the orang outang is a dusky brown: the face is bare; the ears, hands, and feet, nearly similar to the human; and the whole appearance such as to exhibit the most striking approach to the human figure. The likeness, however, is only a general one, and the structure of the hands and feet, when examined with an anatomical precision, seems to prove that the animal was principally designed by nature for the quadruped mode of walking, and not for an upright posture, which is only occasionally assumed, and which, in those exhibited to the public, is, perhaps, rather owing to instruction than truly natural. Buffon, indeed, makes it one of the distinctive characters of the real or proper apes, of which the orang outang is the chief, to walk erect on two legs only; and it must be granted that these animals support an upright posture much more easily and readily than most other quadrupeds, and may probably be often seen in this attitude even in a state of nature.

The manners of the orang outang, when in captivity, are gentle, and perfectly devoid of that disgusting ferocity so conspicuous in some of the larger baboons and monkies. It is mild and docile, and may be taught to perform, with dexterity, a variety of actions in domestic life. Thus it has been seen to sit at table, and, in its manner of feeding and general behaviour, to imitate the company in which it was