on within the last thirty years, both were docile in a remarkable
degree. One in particular, which was caught and trained by Mr. Cripps,
when Government agent, in the Seven Korles, fed from the hand the first
night it was secured, and in a very few days evinced pleasure on being
patted on the head.[1] There is none so obstinate, not even a _rogue_,
that may not, when kindly and patiently treated, be conciliated and
reconciled.

[Footnote 1: This was the largest elephant that had been tamed in
Ceylon; he measured upwards of nine feet at the shoulders and belonged
to the caste so highly prized for the temples. He was gentle after his
first capture, but his removal from the corral to the stables, though
only a distance of six miles, was a matter of the extremest difficulty;
his extraordinary strength rendering him more than a match for the
attendant decoys. He, on one occasion, escaped, but was recaptured in
the forest; and he afterwards became so docile as to perform a variety
of tricks. He was at length ordered to be removed to Colombo; but such
was his terror on approaching the gate, that on coaxing him to enter the
gate, he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to,
and _died on the spot_.]

The males are generally more unmaneagable than the females, and in both
an inclination to lie down to rest is regarded as a favourable symptom
of approaching tractability, some of the most resolute having been known
to stand for months together, even during sleep. Those which are the
most obstinate and violent at first are the soonest and most effectually
subdued, and generally prove permanently docile and submissive. But
those which are sullen or morose, although they may provoke no
chastisement by their viciousness, are always slower in being taught,
and are rarely to be trusted in after life.[1]

[Footnote 1: The natives profess that the high caste elephants, such as
are allotted to the temples, are of all others the most difficult to
tame, and M. BLES, the Dutch correspondent of BUFFON, mentions a caste
of elephants which he had heard of, as being peculiar to the Kandyan
kingdom, that were not higher than a heifer (genisse), covered with
hair, and insusceptible of being tamed. (BUFFON, _Supp._ vol. vi. p.
29.) Bishop HEBER, in the account of his journey from Bareilly towards
the Himalayas, describes the Raja Gourman Sing, "mounted on a little
female elephant, hardly bigger than a Durham ox, and almost as