his agony, now bending his huge proboscis under
him into the ground, now lifting it high in air; now pressing one cheek,
now the other, on the earth.

I have since heard of a tame elephant exhibited in England having been
taught to stand on his head, and, I fancy, dance the polka; and from the
extraordinary positions into which I saw the animals throw themselves on
this occasion, I fully believe in their power to do anything of the
sort.

The mighty captive was close to us. At length, after continually
exerting himself in this strange way, he lay quiet; but every now and
then he would burst out again into a fit of fury, soon however to
discover how vain were his efforts to free himself; and then, overcome
and exhausted, he remained perfectly motionless, giving up for ever, it
seemed, all hope of freedom.

Meantime the other wild elephants were in a state of terror and nervous
excitement. Now they would all stand huddled together, not knowing what
to do; then one, braver than the rest, would advance, and by degrees the
others would follow, and the whole herd made a desperate rush towards
the end of the corral.

It was a nervous moment. It seemed scarcely possible that they would
not dash against the barrier, and, strong as it might be, hurl it in
fragments to the ground, and trampling over their persecutors, escape
into the forest. I held my breath, believing that this would be the
result of their charge; but at the same moment crowds of young men and
boys hurried up to the point threatened, holding long white wands and
spears in their hands. As the elephants approached, with their trunks
raised high in the air, their ears spread out, and their tails erected,
trumpeting and uttering the loudest screams indicative of their rage,
the young men, with the most perfect nerve and coolness, struck their
thin lances through the openings in the palisades, at the same time
shouting and whooping at the top of their voices.

Just as I expected to see the fatal crash come, the huge brutes turned
round, and off they went once more to take shelter under the trees in
the centre of the corral. One after the other, the wild elephants were
bound in much the same way as was the first. What appeared to me very
wonderful, was that the wild ones never molested the mahouts or
cooroowes who rode on the backs of the tame elephants. They could at
any moment have pulled off the riders, but not the slightest attempt of
the sort was ma