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ELEPHANT HUNTING, ETC. 193
Aristotle,
who very probably secured his information through the good offices of
his royal pupil Alexander the Great, gives certain details regarding
elephant hunting, which appears to have been carried on in the India of
three centuries before Christ much in the same way as in our own day.
He says that the elephant hunters were mounted on tamed elephants of
proved courage. When they came up with their untamed brothers they
belaboured these lustily
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with
trunks and tusks until they were completely subdued. When this task had
been accomplished, some of the hunters got on the backs of the
vanquished animals and were able to control their movements by the use
of goads. Aristotle's informants assured him that as long as the
mahouts sat upon the elephants they were docile and obedient, but some
of them became wild again when they were riderless. As a punishment
these had their forefeet bound together so that they could scarcely
move.*
While Alexander himself, who is said to have been very skeptical as to the warlike qualities of the elephant, made
*Aristotelis, "Historia animalium," Lib. IV, cap. 9.
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