ous countries and adorned with numerous cities. When, for the sake of rest, oh Kakootstha! the great elephant, through distress, refreshes himself by moving his head, an earthquake is produced. Having respectfully circumambulated this mighty elephant, guardian of the quarter, they, oh Rama! fearing him, penetrated into Patala. After they had thus penetrated the east quarter, they opened. their way to the south. Here they saw that great elephant Muhapudma, equal to a huge mountain, sustaining the earth with his head. Beholding him, they were filled with surprise; and after the usual circumambulation, the sixty thousand sons of the great Sugura perforated the west quarter. In this these mighty ones saw the elephant Soumanuca, of equal size. Having respectfully saluted him, and inquired respecting his health, these valiant men, digging, arrived at the north. In this quarter, oh chief of Ruzhoo! they saw the snow-white elephant Bhudra, supporting this earth with his beautiful body." The remainder of the passage details the visits to the other four elephants, in a similar strain.

But the sagacity of the elephant, as well as his strength, has formed a prominent part of the fanciful mythology of the Hindoos. Ganesea, the God of Wisdom, is represented in the temples throughout India with a human body and an elephant's head.

The Persians have a festival, according to Chardin, to commemorate the wonderful sagacity, or, rather, inspiration of an elephant, when Abraha, a prince of Yemen, marched an army to destroy the Kaaba of Mecca, the sacred oratory which Abraham *Notes to Southey's Curse of Kehama..

built in that city. Before the birth of Mohammed the Arabians reckoned from this epoch, which they called the year of the coming of the elephants. Sale's version of this story is amusing. "The Meccans, at the approach of so considerable a host, retired to the neighbouring mountains, being unable to defend their city or temple. But God himself undertook the defence of both. For when Abraha drew near to Mecca, and would have entered it, the elephant on which he rode, which was a very large one, and named Mahmud, refused to advance any nigher to the town, but knelt down whenever they endeavoured to force him that way, though he would rise and march briskly enough if they turned him towards any other quarter; and while matters were in this posture, on a sudden a large flock of birds, like swallows, came flying from the seacoast, every one of which carried three stones, one in each foot and one in its bill; and these stones they threw down upon the heads of Abraha's men, certainly

killing every one they struck."* The notion that the elephant was a religious animal has been very general, not only in the East, but among the enlightened nations of antiquity. In Kircher's description of China there is a plate of an elephant worshipping the sun and moon, copied from one of the sacred pictures of the Chinese, which is given on the preceding page.

Cardinal Zabarella caused a coin to be struck, representing the pretended religion of the elephant. All these superstitions have evidently grown out of an exaggerated notion of the animal's sagacity; and they have been spread among mankind by that love of the marvellous which always accompanies a very small degree of knowledge.

CHAPTER IX.

EMPLOYMENT OF ELEPHANTS IN THE WARS OF MODERN ASIA.

THE horse, the camel, and the elephant, are each intimately connected with the history of mankind. The use of the first is unquestionably the most universal. In every stage of civilization in which the animal has been known, has he been found of the most paramount utility. In peace or in war, for luxury or for necessity, with the Arab of the desert or the European of the town, are his services

* Sale's Koran, vol. ii., p. 510.

equally required. He was as necessary to the outfit of armies, when "the light-armed troops" of the Parthian city,

Flying, behind them shot

Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face
Of their pursuers, and o'ercame by flight,"*

as at the last mighty battle that exhibited the fierce
and foolish hatred of the most refined nations of
the world. The employment of the camel is lim-
ited to particular regions, where his strength and
his powers of endurance supply the only link by
which nations separated by nature are enabled to
interchange the products which are essential to
their common welfare. The elephant of the pres..
ent day holds an inferior rank in the scale of use-
fulness to either the horse or the camel. He is val-
uable, but not indispensable. But there was a long
period in the history of the Asiatic nations, and a
briefer one in that of the Greeks and Romans, when
elephants not only administered to the pomp and
luxurious courts, and offered the most essen-
tial services in the operations of commerce, but
were as much an "arm of war" as the artillery of
modern Europe, "which is, as it were, in their
stead in a day of battle." The tactics of modern
times have necessarily dispensed with the services
in the field of an animal that, however powerful in
an attack upon dense masses of half-disciplined,
troops, armed only with the cimeter and the spear,
became unmanageable when he was assailed by
musketry, and, in his terror of firearms, spread
destruction equally among friends and enemies.
We shall trace the elephant through his present
* Paradise Regained.
+ Montaigne, book ii., c. 12.

T

partial employment in an Indian army, to the times when he constituted much of the strength of the Moguls; and then proceed to his history in those more remote periods when he was associated with the destinies of the mightiest empires of antiquity. The elephants of an Anglo-Indian army of the present day are principally used to carry the heavy tents. A camp in Asia is very differently arranged to one in Europe. The quantity of baggage which accompanies even a small number of fighting men is enormous. Every supply that may be required during a campaign is carried with the army. The animals employed in this service are camels, bullocks, and elephants. When it is considered that every officer is attended by a consid. erable number of servants; that the camp is fol. lowed by dealers in every commodity, who extract large profits out of the necessities or vanities of the Europeans; and that the retinue of the commánder is (or at least was, till very recently) upon the same scale of splendour as that of the native princes, the number of animals required to administer to all these real and artificial wants must be enormous. When the Marquis of Cornwallis took the field, during the war with Tippoo, his followers amounted, it is said, to near half a million.

Such a train appears, to a certain extent, essential to an Asiatic army. This circumstance will account for the hostile swarms which Xerxes brought into Greece; and, without any disparagement of the valour which triumphed at Thermopylæ, our wonder at the defeat of several millions by a few thousands will be greatly diminished, when we consider that a very large proportion of those