The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-03
ELEPHANTS IN INDIA.
How the Wild Animals Are Captured
 in the Jungles.

in the Jungles.
 The elephant in India must work when caught That does not necessari- ly mean an unpleasant time for him. He may haul cannon over Himalayan passes or he may take part in tiger hunts in the jungle. He may haul logs in the teak forests of Burma or, best of all he may be dressed in glad rags .a1 1,l2re the glory and sports of some native prince. Whatever they do, all the elephants come from the same source-the jungles of central and southern India, where thousands of them roam wild under protection of the government. Periodically, when a shortage of elephants is felt, the forest service department organizes round up of wild elephants. For weeks shi- karis, or huntsmen, go scouting through the forest to discover where elephants are most plentiful. Here is built a stockade of rough hewn tree trunks, buttressed on the outside with walls of earth It's entrance, which is narrow, has a kind of funnel built away from 1t, also of tree trunks. The roundup itself is often done at night. You can imagine no more weird spec tacle than the Indian forest lit up by the torches of the hunters, who shout ing and yelling drive the screaming and trumpeting elephants into the stockade through the funnel Very often there are thousand elephants in the bunch, and perhaps four or five times that number of beaters and shikaris.
 The elephants are left alone in the stockade for day or so until they calm down a bit from their excitement and terror, Then green food by the ton is thrown in for the elephants, and gradually a few expert trainers mount ed on tame tuskers venture in to make friends with the captives. One by one the wild elephants are roped to two tame colleagues and then taken out. Should the wild elephant show fight he Is promptly rebuked by his guardians ! in. a way that admits of no further l dispute They take him for walks, lead him down to the liver to drink and bathe, and gradually he reconciles him self to his fate.
 If he is very wild fellow he is eagerly brought up by one of the rul- ing maharatahs of India as fighting elephant For in the native states not wholly belonging to Great Britain fierce combats between elephants are given by the princes as entertainments in honor of distinguished guests; also fights between tigers and elephants. Al an elephant fight which Is rarely to the death, two mahouts or drivers sit upon the heads of the monsters, who approach each other until separated by only a low stone wall. Then they begin wrestling with head and trunk and feinting this way and that to gel chance to make furious thrust witf the tusks,
 Tn the elephant and tiger fights the latter comes off second best. He springs, of course. and as he does st the elephant curls up his tender trunk and permits himself to be mauled bS his adversary. while his keen little eye is watching for an opportunity to knee and crush the life out of the tiger witt his five tons of weight.
 The largest of all the elephants and the most intelligent are chosen by the government and the native princes fol the state studs. Elephants of state havt very easy life of it. They have little or no work and only come forth or state occasions bearing lofty towers ot silver or gilded wood from which dc Ipend superb brocades and great drap cries of cloth of gold blazing with pre- .cious stones. In many cases, too, th ends of the animals tusks are fitted with great bosses of pure gold, and hi massive forehead is armored with gold en plats stuck full of steel spikes.
 Aloft in the silver tower will sit prince such as the nizam of Hyderbad 1 whose family pedigree may be trace, back for 5000 years Before him ol either side of the elephant walk grea nobles proclaimng his might ant majesty, while behind come pictur osque cavalry and epearmen, more or namental than useful And, last O all, may come batteries of gold an, silver eannons drawn by teams of ele plants. six or eight to each battery
 New York Sun