The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1907-06-08
BIGGEST OF ELEPHANT HUNTS.

ant features.
It used to be an annual affair, but
there have been serious lapses in this
reign, says the National Geographic
Magasine. There are forebodings
lest the.great chase be given up of
necessary as time goes on.
The royal elephant hunt was
more serious affair, perhaps, when
that majestic beast was the only
means of royal travel on land and the
elephant corps and elephant batteries
were the most important branch of
the army. Save for tradition and
sentiment, for occasional state splen-
dors and parades, the elephant today
has no part in Bangkok court life,
and his occupation would be gone
were it not for the survey crops, the
road builders, officials travelling in
the faraway provinces and the teak
forests and timber yards where Amer
ican overhead machinery cannot sup
plant the intelligent strength of the
elephant.
For the great hunts at Ayuthia,
site of the abandoned capital, the
hunters go out weeks beforehand and
beat the jungles for hundred miles
to north and east, and the Gordon of
tame elephants slowly closes around
the wild elephants and drives them
in herd of two or three hundred
down to the river bank and across to
the Kings kraal.
The last hunt of this kind was ar
ranged for the special enjoyment of
the Crown Prince after his return
from his studies at Oxford and his
tour of America, and before be as
sumed the robes of Buddhist priest
and spent the regulation three months
in monastery, in accordance with
old Siamese custom.
For the hunt week the court stays
at the nearby palace of Bang pain,
on the river banks, and the diploma
tic and other foreign guests go up to
Ayuthia on their houseboats, which
luxuriously lodge them during the
time.
All Bangkok that can find foothold
goes up the forty miles by train, and
all the riverside and creek country
people paddle their small boats and
dugout canoes to the arm of the Mel
nam on which the Kings kraal lies.
When the hunters have urged the
slow moving game out from the jun
gle to the river bank the sight is
worth all Slams efforts to see. Hem
med h at a safe distance by hundreds
of boats the tame elephants slowly
urge their jungle cousins across the
converging approaches to the kraal.
This square enclosure has solid
--.n11s-siv fact -thiclz- with an inner
| SIOCkad~ ee- t~A1- -1one +--.ei--~e>~h
high, banded together with iron and
set so closely together that there is
barely space between for the slim
NEST Siamese to squeeze through.
The grand stand, with its royal
lodge, from which the King and his
guests view the scene, is built over
the north wall of the kraal but as
this position of honor and fixed Ash
attic convention is bad one for pho
tograpners the King, who is an en-
thusiast over the camera, has had
special pavilion constructed at one
side, where he manoevres his instru-
ments. large and small, with the
greatest spirit. Nearly every one
carries camera to the elephant hunt,
but none snap at royalty, except by
request, in so highly civilized coun-
try as Siam.
AS the wild elephants crowd up
and into the narrow chute leading to
the kraal, trumpeting and shutting
nervously in their fright, the scram-
Bile and crush is terrific. After the
huge logs have closed the wicket or
portcullis the tame elephants go
around as an ambulance corps, as
sisting bruised and injured elephants
to move and rise to their feet and
turning the dead ones over out OF the
way. At every hunt several beasts
have their ribs broken and the life
crushed out of them in lhis crush at
the gates, for when two frantic ele-
plants try to go through at once,
neither one yields or draws back, and
the strongest and largest survives.
After this panic mildly subsidies,
though the kraal is filled with the
wild Jungle folk, who trumpet and
scream increasingly, the elephant doc
tors move about on their trained
tuskers and note the desirable catches.
The chosen ones are lassoed by the
foot and made fast to stakes. A few
are chosen for the royal stables, but
the rest go the practical, commercial
way-to the survey camps and teak
forests.
There is great contrast between the
sleek, fat, we'll fed and well groomed
tame elephants, with their quiet dig
nifty, their benign and easy maneu-
vres, and the sorry looking jungle
folk-gaunt, weather worn elephants,
with visible ribs and patches of fun
gous growth-but few weeks ol
care and food, few scrubbings and
oilings transform them, and they soon
acquire the urbane manner and com
posurc.
Every Siamese is connoisseur and
critic of elephants, and judges un'
erringly from the wild herd. First
the creature should have good skin,
unscarred, of uniform wrinklings OF
texture, and as light in color as pos
sible.
His toes should have black nails
and his tail must be absolutely IN
tact. Insignificant as the elephants
tail is, the want of it renders the
creature impossible and ridiculous
and many a promising elephant is re
iected at the kraal because he ha:
lost his tail in some jungle fight. A
: steady. even gait is necessary for th'