be bolted with by an Elephant is far from pleasing, though a rather exciting event. It makes for the nearest jungle at once, being, much more than the African species, an inhabitant of forest. And in rushing through the dense undergrowth, the occupiers of the Elephant's back are apt to be swept off or cut to pieces by innumerable thorns.
Elephants, no doubt of the Indian species, were used by the Persians in battle, and from fifteen which were captured at the battle of Arbela some notes were drawn up by Aristotle. In stating that the animal reaches an age of 200 years, the naturalist and philosopher was probably not very far out. The mode of Elephant-catching as related by Aristotle is that pursued at the present day. Then, as now, tame Elephants were made use of as decoys. Pliny,[1] who was apt to confound fact and fiction in a somewhat inseparable tangle, had something to say about Elephants, both Indian and African. Serpents, he thought, were their chief enemies, which slew them by coiling round them and thrusting their heads into the trunk, and so stopping respiration. In Europe Elephants were first seen in the year B.C. 280. Pyrrhus used them in his invasion, and copying his example the Romans themselves learnt to use Elephants. The first Elephant seen in England arrived in the year 1257, presented by the King of France to Henry III. It was kept in the Tower (for long afterwards a menagerie), and died at twelve years of age. Much use of the Elephant has been made in symbols. We have spoken of the African Elephant on Carthaginian coins as an emblem of eternity. The Oriental Elephant resting on the back of a tortoise and supporting the world is the same idea; and it is instructive to note that remains have been found in the Siwalik Hills of a tortoise which would have been actually big enough to support the creature, even "Jumbo," who weighed 6½ tons. Another symbol is that of an Elephant upon whose back is a child with arrows; this occurs on a medal of the Emperor Philip. It can perhaps hardly signify the eternity of a strong human feeling!
The intelligence of the Elephant has been both exaggerated and minimised. Perhaps the most elaborate attempt to endow the beast with unusual mental perceptions is that of Aelian, who related that an Elephant carefully watching his keeper, wrote after him with his trunk letters upon a board. That the animal does
- ↑ See Natural History of the Ancients, by Rev. M. G. Watkins, London, 1896.
