The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-03-02
Elephant Flowing in India.


fenced in by stone or hedge, and the
ryot's crop is thus often ruined by wild
beasts. The peasant usually bitches
buffalo to a rude plow and turns up "a
slight furrow in the soil before plant
ing the crop; occasionally, however, on
large estates, where work is done more
thoroughly, an elephant is employed to
draw heavy-wheeled plow, with
share that cuts more deeply. This
work the patient animal does well with
his immense strength.
When or how the IIindoos succeeded
in the art of tanning elephants is of
course unknown. AS elephants are
not easily raised. the captured elephants
seldom breeding, the stock is kept up
by the constant capture of fresh
supply.
The art of tanning and making these
intelligent creatures useful in. peace
and war was once known in Africa, but
is now lost; the Asiatic elephant alone
is tanned for the use of man. A recent
writer, ii lady, gives us an insight into
the mode Of capturing and tanning an
Indian elephant:
"While staying at Mysore, on our
road up to the hills, we had seen
large male elephant, which had been
just captured, brought into the canton
ment between the eight trained female
elephante that had assisted in taking
him, and which now walked, four on
either side, armed with heavy chains,
with which they continually dashed the
TANKS of their prisoner, whilst he
stalked along with an expression on
his face, as if he would eXclaim, with
the injured lover in the opera, 'Ah!
mia tradia, ali! mia tradia.' When wo
visited the Rajah's stud, eight months
afterward, we saw the same animal,
but so changed as to be scarcely recog-
niZable. When he had marched in,
fresh from the jungle, he had been
splendid fellow, of eight feet high, and
massive in his proportions, and had re-
quired all the Negotiations of his clever
lady captors to keep him in anything
like order; now-although, perhaps
looking taller, on account of the fact
that his huge bones were painfully APP
parent beneath his skin, he had no
signs of splendor left in him. His
mournful eyes were haggard, blood
shot, and suppurating, as were also
cruel wounds, made by the chains
which encircled his neck and legs,
and which had been riveted on so
tightly at first that they had eaten into
the poor animals flesh, and then, when
fOrcible removed and fastened higher
up the joint, had left jagged fostering
sores behind them. 1t gave us such
pain to look at this noble creature re-
duced to such an abject condition, that
the memory of his altered appearance
haunted us. The manner in which
elephants are ptured-being enticed
from their jungle by the call of the fe-
male elephants, trained for the purpose,
into an inclosure, where their captors
gradually encircle them nearer and
nearer until they are fairly trapped
is well known; but the mode by which
the natives break the spirit of their
huge prisoners is not, perhaps so famil-
lar. When first caught, and chained
by all four legs to the ground, the wild
elephant naturally rebels-refuses to
eat-and, if not subdued, would fret
himself to death. The method of train
ing him therefore Gas it is called), is
not to permit him to sleep. AS long
as the beast shows any signs of rebel
lion he is not allowed to close his
weary eyes. Relays of natives dance
round him all night, flashing torches
before his bewildered sight, and shout
ing song into his amazed ears, the
refrain of which is:
You must submit to the Rajah
You must submit to the Rajah;'
and the usual upshot of which is that
the poor animal, being too full of Jungle
life to die, and driven nearly stupid by
sights and sounds such as his jungle
life never brought to him. ENDS by sub
mission; that is to say he abandons
hopeless efforts to root up his chains and
trample those who aDDrOach him under
his feet; and, worn out by pain and
want of rest and quiet, consents to eat
as much food as will support life in
him, and remains for the rest of tho
day with down-hanging head and blood
shot, despairing eyes, sadly wondering
how this great change has come upon
him. "But they assured us, in few
months, the elephant | allude to would