to our lofty
perch. As before, not a sound was heard, but the watch-fires blazing up
shed their ruddy glow over the dark forest, and lighted up the
picturesque figures of the men employed around them. Suddenly the roll
of a drum was heard, then a discharge of musketry, and then shrill wind
instruments, and shrieks and cries resounded wildly through the forest.
The fires burned up brighter than ever, and an entire line of flame
extended round the whole opposite to where we sat away from the corral.
Near the corral all was profound silence and darkness. On came the mass
of hunters with flambeaus, closing in, shrieking and shouting, driving
the whole body of elephants before them. Again the huge leader of the
beasts crushed through the brushwood, pressing the smaller trees before
him. Nearer he and his followers approached the gateway. Wilder blazed
the torches, and louder rose the shouts. In he dashed, followed by the
rest, the bars were let drop behind them, and sixty wild beasts of the
forest were made captives. The corral, it must be remembered, was full
of trees, and left in as perfect a state of nature as possible. The
moment they were in, all the sides of the corral blazed up with
brilliant flame, the hunters having rushed to the nearest watch-fire to
light their torches as they came up.

The first impulse of the elephants was to rush across the corral, hoping
to make their escape; but they were brought up by the strong palisades,
and driven back by the flaming torches, the muskets fired in their
faces, and the loud cries of the hunters. Then they turned, and dashed
back to the entrance-gate. It was closed, and in vain they attempted to
force an exit; the torches, and music, and cries, drove them back; and
at length they all formed in one group together in the centre of the
corral, the very picture of hapless captives. Then they would start
round and round the corral, looking out for some weaker place through
which they might escape; but, finding none, they again returned to the
centre of the enclosure, not in silence, however, for, as if to mock the
shouts of their tormentors, they set up the most terrific trumpeting and
screaming I have ever heard.

Sometimes one of the larger male elephants would leave the crowd, and go
round trumpeting with fury, trying to get through here and there at some
spot not before examined, but with the same result. Then he would
return, sullen and bewildered, to his compa