When enclosed they
become outrageous, and charge on all sides with great fury, but without
any effect on the strong barricado; they at last gain the narrow path of
the enclosure, the extreme end of which is just large enough to admit one
elephant, which is immediately prevented breaking out by strong bars laid
across. To express their passion, their desperation, when thus confined,
is impossible; and still more so, to imagine the facility and admirable
contrivance by which they are removed and tamed. Thus it is:--A tame
elephant is placed on each side, to whom the wild one is fastened by ropes;
he is then allowed to pass out, and immediately on his making the least
resistance, the tame ones give him a most tremendous squeeze between their
sides, and beat him with their trunks until he submits; they then lead him
to a place ready prepared, to which he is strongly fastened, and return to
perform the same civility to the next one.
In this way seventy wild elephants were captured for the purpose of
government labour. The tame elephants daily take each wild one singly to
water and to feed, until they become quite tame and docile. The remaining
elephants were shot by the people.
I took possession of a young one, and have got him now tied up near my
door; he is quite reconciled, and eats with the greatest confidence out of
my hand; he is, however, too expensive to keep long, and I fear I must
eventually shoot him.
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