The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1891-01-23
AN ELEPHANT HUNT IN SIAM.
A Country Where Nearly 500 of the bis
Animals nc Captured at u Time.

A Country Where Nearly 500 of the BIG
Animals Arc Captured at Il Time.
One ~scorching morning in April, 1910,
a small party of Europeans left the city
Of Bangkok, the present capital OF the
kingdom of Siam, for Ayuthia, the old
seat of government, sixty miles north
ward up the River Menam. a hunt mad
been appointed by the king, and the eie-
plants were to be brought in through
the country bordering the ancient ruins.
On the second day we arrived at
Ayuthia, and set up u screens n
hung our mosquito bars in a sala. or rest
house, by the river side.
The following morning the elephants
arrived. Just outside the city, and over
looking a plain extending to the horizon,
was a high platform, mounted by stono
steps and covered with q tiled roof sup
ported by pillars. On this, screened
from the sun, and with a broad outlook
over the rice fields that had lately been
shorn OF their crop, sat a high official,
his aids, q few native mobiles and the
foreign guests.
The other spectators perched in trees
or found standing room wherever the
view was most attractive. Immediately
before the platform was the stockade.
made by setting deep into the ground
teak logs two yards in girth and twenty
feet in length. These logs were so ar
ranged as to leave interspaces of about
one foot in width. They inclosed a half
acre of level ground, and extended out,
at the side opposite the platform, into
a funnel shaped entrance only wide
enough, where it joined the stockade, for
the passing of a single elephant.
Gazing far across the stubbly plain
we saw the troop of elephants, encom-
passed by the many hunters who had
been sent months before into the wilder
ness to entice the wild animals toward q
rendezvous. The families, scattered in
the junsies, foraging among the luxuri-
ant harbage, had been separately entered
by tame decoy elephants, under the d.
rection of willy hunters, ans n had fol-
lowed another into captivity. Two hun-
dred and eighty elephants had thus been
brought together. The sound of their
roaring was like that Of distant thunder,
u as tney approached Oue editn oeeued
to shake under their tread.
By a skillful combination Of leading
and driving they were slowly urged
along toward the stockade. Foremost
were the decoyers, trained to their work,
which they do with complacent discre-
ton. They were ridden by experts in
elephant training, and followed by the
wild herds in which were elephants Of
all ages. Hemming in the ~assemblage
on the sides and in the rear, many other
tanned elephants directed by their riders
urged on the laggards with their long
tusks and shouldered the stragglers into
place.
Occasionally a huge fellow, becoming
conscious of being directed by a will not
his own, would rear, trumpet a protest,
bolt through the Gordon of sentinels and
gallop toward the distant woods. But
these fugitives were quickly chased by
three or four trained beasts, and were
soon brought back to the ranks. Only
one, a majestic creature with enormous
snowy tusks, distanced his p~ursuers and
regained freedom in the bush.-St. Mich
olas.