MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

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ELEPHANT HUNT.


A medical officer, in a recent letter from Hambantotti says, I have just
returned from beholding a sight, which, even in this country, is of rare
occurrence, viz. an elephant hunt, conducted under the orders of
government. A minute description (though well worth perusal) would be far
too long for a letter; I shall therefore only give you what is usually
called a faint idea.

Imagine 2,000 or 3,000 men surrounding a tract of country six or eight
miles in circumference, each one armed with different combustibles and
moving fires; in the midst suppose 300 elephants, being driven towards the
centre by the gradual and regular approach of these fires, till at last
they are confined within a circle of about two miles; they are then driven
by the same means into a space made by the erection of immense logs of
ebony and other strong wood, bound together by cane, and of the shape (in
miniature) of the longitudinal section of a funnel, towards which they
rush with the greatest fury, amidst the most horrid yells on the approach
of fire, of which they stand in the greatest dread. 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