175 VOL. VI. LITERATUR Magazine. RE&EDUCATIO UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 114 THE SATURDAY MAGAZINE. THE NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY OF ELEPHANTS KNOX's IV. MANNER OF CATCHING As THE manner of catching wild elephants is very simple, though attended with much labour and expense. soon as it has been well ascertained where the herds have congregated, the forest is surrounded with fires kindled at certain distances, and forming a circuit of at least thirty miles. These are kept continually burning, and the intervals occupied by men, to the number of several thousands. The fires are raised four feet from the ground upon moveable stands, formed of four perpendicular sticks with twigs wattled across on the top, upon which earth is laid to receive the fuel, and covered with a sloping canopy of cocoa-nut leaves to protect it from the rain. These stands are placed, at first, about seventy yards asunder, and are brought nearer by degrees, in proportion as the circle is diminished, which is gradually done every day, until the elephants are confined within so narrow a circle, that the intervals between the fires do not exceed twenty feet. The circle is daily narrowed, at the average rate of about As the space diminishes, the a quarter of a mile. enclosed elephants become eager to escape, and it requires great vigilance and management, to prevent them from forcing their way through the intervals; but they have so great a dread of fire, that this is in general very successfully done: for the shouts and flames strike them with so much terror, that if they venture on a charge, they are soon compelled to retreat, provided the hunters are cool and resolute. The herd is finally enclosed within a very confined circle; one part of which is elongated like the mouth of a funnel, and the extreme end just spacious enough to admit a single elephant. The elephants are now confined to a space so narrow, that their power of action is considerably impeded; the enclosure being reduced to a compass of little more than a mile, and still surrounded by fires. Within this fiery circle is a palisade, composed of large, strong stakes, connected by transverse beams, and further secured by powerful supporters, forming a fence of prodigious strength and compactness. Fresh boughs are strewed before the snare, in order to conceal it from the elephants, which, mistaking the boughs for the natural forest, seldom attempt to assault the fence; but when they do, it is always attended with extreme danger. That part of the snare in which the elephants are first enclosed, is, as I have before said, about a mile in circumference, but it communicates with a smaller one, not more than a hundred feet long, and forty wide, through which passes a rivulet five feet deep, nearly filling the whole inner space. The elephants enter the last enclosure at only one gate, and beyond the water the fence gradually contracts, terminating in a small passage, as already mentioned, about a hundred feet long by five broad. This latter enclosure is composed of the trunks of trees nearly a foot in diameter, sunk six fect into the ground, and forming a gigantic fence about twenty feet high. The trees are bent inward to a considerable curve, being little more than a foot apart, and crossed by four rows of immense beams, strapped to them with thick strips of bamboo. To this palisade, are added supporters still more inclined, and several feet asunder, thus greatly increasing the security of the snare. spite, however, of its vast strength, and the skill employed by the huntsmen, the elephants have been known, after two or three desperate charges, to break it down, and effect their escape; though this rarely happens. In As soon as the devoted herd is driven within the larger circle, the entrances are secured by immense stakes, strengthened with transverse beams, like the rest of the fence. Fires are then kindled within, in order to drive them into the smaller fold, in which, if their numbers are great, they are so crowded, that they have little or no power to exert their prodigious energies. The persons who manage the fires, can easily escape through the interstices between the pales, should the elephants attempt to rush upon them. The gate of the inner fold is composed of round poles, placed horizontally, and fastened together with strong withes and thick ropes, and is rolled up like a scene in a theatre. Several men sit upon the cross-beam at the top, to which it is suspended, ready to cut the cords upon a given signal. When the fires and terrifying shouts of the hunters have frightened a sufficient number of elephants When the elephant is completely harnessed, the legs After the capture, when an elephant is not very unruly, it is customary to place it lengthways between two trees, about forty feet apart, then to strap its hind-legs close together, and fasten them to one of the trees, with five or six turns of thick rope. One of the fore-legs is likewise bound, to which greater liberty is allowed by the length and slackness of the cordage. The pair of tame elephants are then disengaged from the wild one, and led back to the snare, to take charge of another prisoner. When the wild elephant is left alone, its impatience returns, and it makes the most desperate efforts to release itself. While soothed by the society of its kindred guides, it commonly stands perfectly tranquil, appearing to forget its sorrows, and to acquire fortitude under its sufferings: but the moment its companions quit its side, finding itself in bonds, with scarcely power to move, it is agitated to a frightful degree, breaks out into a most appalling roar, and in the furious excitement of its grief, often falls a sacrifice to the exertions which it makes to regain its liberty. Cocoa-nut leaves, and young plantain trees, are offered to it in vain. It tosses them contemptuously aside, or tramples them with indignation under its feet. Generally, however, this paroxysm soon subsides, and the cravings of appetite induce it at length to eat, which it does at first with evident reluctance, but gradually becomes more resigned, and feeds eagerly, at the expiration of a few hours. When an elephant is of very large size, and apparently, unusually fierce and stubborn, it is led to a stall previously erected for the purpose. Four strong stakes are driven into the ground, at short intervals, parallel with two large trees, the former being traversed by three horizontal bars of great strength, uniting them together. These are strengthened by a second line of stakes, similarly joined, and the whole is secured with strong ropes. The wild elephant is induced to place its head between the two middle stakes, when it is secured above and below by two of the cross-bars. A tame elephant is placed on each side of the captive. On their backs are five or six natives, actively employed in fastening its neck to the stakes, and as many more are engaged in tying the legs, and coiling the ropes round the large trees. All this while, the prisoner is so caressed by the tame elephants, that it is insensible to what is going on. Both the fore and hind-legs are bound together. Five ropes are carried from the latter, one to each of the four corners of the stall, and one is suspended from the cross-beam behind. The fore-legs are secured to the two stakes, between which the tame elephants stand, and two extra ropes extend from those stakes, to the larger trees in the same line. Sometimes this rack is formed merely of hewn timber, but the assistance of living trees is always taken where it can be obtained, as it contributes greatly to the strength of the imprisonment. Secure and strong as this fabric always is, yet many huge elephants shake it to the very foundation, causing the trees to quiver from their summits to their roots, and combine such tremendous bellowings with their exertions, that spectators, unaccustomed to the sight, are apt to entertain the most alarming apprehensions. The plaintive cries of the elephant, when first made captive, have all the various expressions of sorrow, rage, resentment, and despair. Frequently, after it is bound to the trees, or confined within the stall set apart for its reception, finding every effort to disengage itself ineffectual, its small hollow eyes fill with tears, and its countenance assumes an expression of the deepest melancholy. The females, from natural causes, feel the oppression of the yoke with keener sensibility than the males, and more frequently fall a sacrifice in their protracted struggles for freedom. It sometimes, though rarely, happens that the captive elephant falls down in the narrow passage of the snare, and when this is the case, it occasions the greatest perplexity; for it is extremely difficult to induce the huge creature to rise. Even fire has been kindled round its body to no purpose. It stubbornly abides the fiery trial, and, in the sullen determination of its despair, dies upon the very spot on which it had fallen. It is difficult to extricate a dead elephant from the narrow passage; the enormous weight almost precluding the possibility of removal, and when such an accident occurs, the only method is to dismember the gigantic body, and draw it out piecemeal. The time necessary to tame elephants, after they are thus captured, is from eight to sixty days. KNOX'S ACCOUNT OF THE ELEPHANT. KNOX's account of the elephant, in his History of Ceylon, is extremely interesting. "As the elephant is the greatest in body, so is he in understanding also. For he does any thing that his keeper bids him, which it is possible for a beast, not having hands, to do. And as the Chingalayes report, they bear the greatest love to their young of all irrational creatures, for the shes are alike tender of any one's young as of their own. Where there are many she elephants together, the young ones go and suck of any as well as of their mothers; and if a young one be in distress, and should cry out, they all in general run to the help and aid thereof. And if they be going over a river, as here be some somewhat broad, and the stream run very swift, they all with their trunks assist and help to convey the young ones over. They take great delight in lying and tumbling in the water, and swim excellently well. Their teeth they never shed. Neither will they ever breed tame ones with tame ones; but the people, to ease themselves of the trouble of bringing them meat, tie their two fore-feet together, and put them into the woods, where, meeting with the wild ones, they conceive, and go one year with young. * See CORDINER's History of Ceylon. This is a mistake, their time of gestation is eighteen months. "It is their constant practice to shove down with their heads great trees, which they love to eat, when they are too high and they cannot otherwise reach the boughs. Wild ones run much faster than a man, but tame ones not ‡. The people stand in fear of them, and oftentimes are killed by them. They do them, also, great damage in their grounds, coming by night into their fields, eating up their corn, and likewise their cocoa-nut trees. So that in towns, near unto the woods, where there is plenty of them, the people are forced to watch their corn all night, and also their outyards and plantations, into which being once entered, with eating and trampling, they do much harm before they can be got out. When, by lighting of torches and hallooing, they will not go out, they take their bows and shoot them, but not without some hazard, for sometimes the elephant runs upon them and kills them; for fear of which they will not adventure, unless there be trees, about which they may dodge to defend themselves. "The king makes use of elephants for executioners. They run their tusks through the body, then tear it in pieces, and throw it limb from limb. Sharp irons, with a socket and three edges, are put on their tusks at such times; for the elephants that are kept have all the ends of their tusks cut, to make them grow the better, and they do grow out again. At some uncertain seasons, an infirmity comes on the males, which go stark mad, so that none can rule them. Many times they run raging with their keepers on their backs, until they throw them down and kill them; but commonly there is notice of it before, by an oil that runs out of their cheeks, which, when it ap pears, they immediately chain them fast by the legs to great trees. For this infirmity they use no medicine, neither is the animal sick; but the females are never sub ject to it. "The keepers of the king's elephants sometimes make sport with them after this manner. They command an elephant to take up water, which he does, and stands with it in his trunk, till they command him to squirt it out at somebody, which he immediately does, it may be a whole pailful together, and with such force, that a man can hardly stand against it." J.H.C. This is likewise a mistake. I have krown a tame elephant go fourteen miles in one hour. READER! you have been bred in a land abounding with men, able in arts, learning and knowledges manifold; this man in one, this in another, few in many, none in all. But there is one art of which every man should be a master, the art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all. In like manner, there is one knowledge, which it is every man's-duty and interest to acquire, namely, self-knowledge. Or to what end was man alone, of all animals, endued by the Creator with the faculty of self-consciousness?-COLERIDGE. Ir behoves us always to bear in mind, that while actions are always to be judged by the immutable standard of right and wrong, the judgments which we pass upon men must be qualified by considerations of age, country, situation, and other accidental circumstances, and it will then be found that he who is most charitable in his judgment, is generally the least unjust.-SOUTHEY. THOSE, who in the confidence of superior capacities or attainments neglect the common maxims of life, should be reminded that nothing will supply the want of prudence; but that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and-genius contemptible.-JOHNSON. KNOWLEDGE and wisdom, far from being one, THE LAC INSECT, (Chermes lacca.) THE little insect represented in the engraving, is found upon several trees and shrubs in the East Indies; it produces the substance called Lac, which is of considerable use in various arts and manufactures. The best account we have of this useful little creature, is that given by Dr. Roxburgh, in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society. the smooth plank of a plantain-tree, and is there spread into thin plates; in this form it is brought to Europe, and is employed in the manufacture of sealing-wax and varnishes. It forms the basis of the well-known French polish, and is used by hatters in the making of waterproof hats. The colouring matter which the stick-lac contains, is employed in dyeing; and the deeper the colour of the sample, the better it is for that purpose. The colour which it affords, is less brilliant than the scarlet obtained from cochineal; but it has the advantage of possessing greater durability. It is said, that it may be employed to good purpose, by mixing a certain quantity with the cochineal, when, if it is not in too large a proportion, the scarlet will be rendered more permanent, without losing any thing of its beauty. The lac-colour is preserved by the natives, upon flakes of cotton-wool dipped repeatedly into a strong solution of the lac-insect in water, and then dried. Dr. Bancroft endeavoured, by certain processes, to improve the brilliancy of the colouring-matter of the lac, and he so far succeeded, as to dye several small pieces of cloth of a brilliant scarlet, equal to that produced by cochineal; but when the experiment was tried on a larger scale, from some ill-understood cause, it was unsuccessful. "Some pieces of very fresh-looking lac, adhering to small branches of Mimosa cinerea, were brought to me from the mountains. I kept them carefully in wide-mouthed bottles slightly covered, and fourteen days from the time they came from the hills, thousands of exceedingly minute red animals were observed crawling about the lac and the branches it adhered to, and still more were issuing from small holes on the surface of the cells. By the assistance of glasses, small excrescences were also observed, interspersed among these holes, two regularly to each hole, crowned with some very fine white hairs, which being wiped off, two white spots appeared, (see fig. 1.) "The animals, when single, ran about pretty briskly, but in general, on opening the cells, they were so numerous, as to be crowded over one another. The substance of which the cells were formed cannot be better described, with respect to appearance, than by saying it is like the transparent amber of which beads are made. The external covering of the cells is about the twenty-fourth part of an inch in thickness, it is remarkably strong, and able to resist injuries; the partitions are much thinner. The cells are, in general, irregular squares, pentagons and hexagons, about an eighth of an inch in diameter, and a quarter of an inch deep; they have no communication with each other. All those opened during the time the animals were issuing from them, contained in one side, which occupied half the cell, a small bag filled with a thick jelly-like red liquor, Polishing grindstones are only made of such sand replete with what I take to be eggs. These bags as will pass easily through fine muslin, in the proadhere to the bottom of the cells, and have each two portion of two parts sand to one of lac. necks, (see fig. 3,) which pass through holes in the persons, instead of sand, use the powder of a very outward coat of the cells, forming the excrescences hard kind of granite. These grindstones cut very fast. we have mentioned, ending in some fine white hairs. The same composition is formed upon sticks The other half of the cells have a distinct opening, for cutting stones, shells, &c., by the hand. and contain a white substance, like a few filaments of cotton rolled together, and a number of the little red insects themselves, crawling about, ready to make their exit. Their portion of each cell is about one half, and I think must have contained nearly one hundred of these animals. In other cells less forward, I found a thick, red, dark, blood-coloured liquor, with numbers of exceedingly minute eggs, many times smaller than those found in the small bags which occupied the other half of the cells." These animals undergo several changes in the course of their existence, from the egg proceeds the larva (fig. 8,) its next change is into the pupa (fig. 9,) from which, at length, the perfect insect issues * (figs. 5 and 11.) As an article of commerce, lac is known in Europe under the names of stick-lac, seed-lac, and shell-lac. The first is the lac in its native state, as it is found adhering to the twigs on which it was originally deposited. The seed-lac is the yellowish hard resinous powder, which remains after the red colour of stick-lac has been extracted, as far as it can conveniently be done, by water. Shell-lac is produced from seed-lac, by putting the latter into long cylindrical bags of cotton cloth, melting it by holding the bags over a charcoal fire: and when the lac melts, straining it through the cloth by twisting the bags. The lac thus strained is allowed to fall upon See Saturday Magazine, Vol. II., p. 212. We cannot well conclude this account, without noticing a very singular use made of this substance, in India; namely, the forming it into grindstones, by the following plan.-" Take of river-sand three parts, of seed-lac washed one part, mix them over a fire, and form the mass into the shape of a grindstone, having a square hole in the centre; cement it to an axis with melted lac, heat the stone moderately; and while revolving rapidly on its axis, it can be easily formed into a circle." Some ON THE MORAL AND PHYSICAL CONDITION It is essential to the developement of the energies of that intellectual principle which is within us, that an intercourse be established between it and the material existences without. The immaterial and undying soul is, in this, our present state, so wrought around and entrammelled by its material appendages, as to be incapable of any availing exercise of its powers, until they have first been schooled and disciplined by that intercourse. Without it, reason there could be none, where there would be no data; memory none, where nothing had been perceived; imagination none, where there was no reality. Man, endued with all the attributes of humanity, could possess none of its energies. His form might combine all the elements of power and beauty: the blood of life might flow through it; the soul might hold in it her accustomed seat; and the senses, her ministers, might be disposed around, ready to do her bidding; but were there no external objects whereon to occupy those senses, or were the sentient principle careless or unable to avail herself of their ministry, the whole would present the emblem of a death-like repose, of a perpetual and dreamless sleep. For the carrying on of this intercourse, man is provided, in the organs of sense, with means of boundless application, and of most exquisite contrivance. The Hand, for instance, is capable of moving accurately to any point, of varying the quantity and direction of its motion and pressure in every conceivable way, and, by habit, it may be made to measure, and to take note of this power and direction with inconceivable minuteness. The manual skill acquired by painters, sculptors, and operative mechanics, is no other than the application of a knowledge of the effects of different, and of exceedingly minute, developements of force, accurately measured, both as to their quantity and direction, in the mechanism of the hand, and treasured, with these results, in the memory. It is beyond the power of imagination to conceive the variety and complexity of its operations. Writing is one of the simplest of them, and yet, in the formation of every written character, there takes place a certain minute developement of force, varying in quantity and direction, which is accurately poised in the hand as to its quantity, measured as to its direction, and remembered, and may be re-formed again, the same, even without the assistance of the sight. The hand serves further as a probe, to measure the degrees of the hardness or softness of bodies, and the smoothness of their surfaces; as a balance, to compare weight; as a thermometer, to estimate their temperature. The Ear estimates for us the motions of the minute atoms of that form of matter (the air,) which is among the most subtile; regular vibrations of the atmosphere, when made with different velocities, producing distinct sounds. And, similarly, the Eye notes the motions of the still more minute particles of light, indicating their different relations in the varieties of colour. How exquisite must be the mechanism which enables us thus to measure the force of impulses of whose existence the lightest body we can conceive, however delicately suspended, will, when opposed to them, give no perceptible evidence; impulses of atoms so minute, as to be incomparably less than the smallest portion of matter, whose distinct existence we have ever been able to recognise. Exquisitely wrought as are the senses of hearing and sight, who will assert that any superfluous contrivance has been bestowed on their construction' Were it not for the perfect sympathy thus established between our organs of sensation, and those subtile fluids of air and light, which pervade the space in which we exist, all that we see, having distinctness and firm, and all that we hear of modulated sound, would have been lost to us. There might, with less of contrivance in the eye, have been the perception of light, but there could have been none of those exquisite varieties of shade and colour, which enable us to appreciate the objects we look upon; and so, with a less-delicate mechanism of the car, there might have been hearing, but all distinction of the rapid and evanescent varieties in articulate sound, would have been impossible, and there could have been no perception of measured harmony. Not only has man the means or carrying on the intercourse thus essential to all that constitutes his active existence, but he is irresistibly impelled to the use of those means, and to the establishment of that intercourse; for, the circumstances in which man is placed, impel him, of necessity, to acquire the knowledge which he has thus the means of acquiring. He is so constituted as never to be capable of deriving entire satisfaction from any thing which he may obtain. Not only is he gifted with senses enabling him to distinguish the minutest differences of external things, but each of the perceptions which he thus obtains is coupled with an emotion equally delicate and varied, of pleasure or pain. Thus exquisitely sensitive, he finds himself urged perpetually by wants which nothing in the world he inhabits offers itself to gratify, liable to calamities which nothing, of itself, intervenes to screen him from; and he is never without the hope of some enjoyment, or the terror of some suffering. This apparent destitution of man is the great clement of his intellectual and physical superiority; inasmuch as it forces him to the acquisition of that KNOWLEDGE in which he finds the secret of supplying his wants. Nature has so ministered to the comforts of inferior animals, as to limit the wants they are themselves called upon to supply, to a definite and an exceedingly small number; and limited as these wants, are their means of perceiving the qualities of the external things which are necessary for their gratification. Man is a creature of boundless desires and wants, and he is thus intellectually and physically great, because his desires and his wants are thus boundless. Urged on in a perpetual round of new sensations, every one of which is more or less permanently registered by the memory, and rendered an element of knowledge; be may be called emphatically, as distinguished from all others, a learning animal. Had he possessed no other distinctive qualification than that of organs infinitely better suited than those of any other class of animals, to convey to his mind distinct perceptions of the material world in all its modifications, coupled with equally acute emotions of pleasure and pain, together with unlimited desires for the enjoyment of the one, and for exemption from the other; and, thus constituted, had he been placed as we find him in a world where nothing was supplied to his hand, for the gratification of these desires; where every desire and every suffering pointed to the KNOWLEDGE of some class of material existences, through which that desire might be satisfied, or that pain avoided; were there no higher attributes of humanity than these, it is scarcely pos |