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MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.
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ELEPHANT HUNT.
A medical officer, in a recent letter from Hambantotti says, I have just
returned from beholding a sight, which, even in this country, is of rare
occurrence, viz. an elephant hunt, conducted under the orders of
government. A minute description (though well worth perusal) would be far
too long for a letter; I shall therefore only give you what is usually
called a faint idea.
Imagine 2,000 or 3,000 men surrounding a tract of country six or eight
miles in circumference, each one armed with different combustibles and
moving fires; in the midst suppose 300 elephants, being driven towards the
centre by the gradual and regular approach of these fires, till at last
they are confined within a circle of about two miles; they are then driven
by the same means into a space made by the erection of immense logs of
ebony and other strong wood, bound together by cane, and of the shape (in
miniature) of the longitudinal section of a funnel, towards which they
rush with the greatest fury, amidst the most horrid yells on the approach
of fire, of which they stand in the greatest dread.
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