like style. The exit by the side of the pavilion was opened, and seven of the largest tame tuskers entered in single file, led by the king's chief mahout mounted. on a superb animal. Each elephant carried two men, the mahout sitting astride the neck and guiding his mount by the pressure of his knees as well as by shouting, the second man sitting over the hind quarters and by means of the goad urging the beast to quicken his pace either forward or backward. The mahouts carried a long bamboo pole, to one end of which was fast ened the detachable noose of a coil of rope on his elephant's back. When the seven tuskers had formed in line, they drove the herd in a circle around the center refuge. After a short time, one of the young elephants would drift to the rear rank, and a mahout, urging his mount forward, would slip the noose under one of the youngster's hind feet, detach the pole by a quick jerk, and turning sharply and paying out the coil of rope at the same time, would bring the line taut and fix the noose firmly in place. The end would then be untied from the saddle of the tame mount, and the young tusker would go racing madly back to the herd, dragging fifty yards of rope after him. This operation was repeated for each of the eight captives, and in some instances, when the youngsters seemed particularly fractious, both hind feet would be roped. After all the ropes were made fast, the herd was let loose, the tame mounts mingling with it, and gradually forcing the roped animals closer to the posts to which they were respectively tied, the slack being taken up by men outside the stockades, and made fast, leaving them secured within a small radius of ten or fifteen yards. The mahouts now left the kraal for a short breathing-space, and the herd wandered about sucking up every possible drop of water from the pools made by the rain of the night before, throwing it high over their backs to cool their hot hides from the burning sun. It was amusing to watch the frantic efforts of the baby elephants, of which there were a considerable number, to keep from being trampled upon by the herd. In every instance their coign of vantage was immediately beneath their mother, and they showed the greatest cleverness in keeping their position as she swayed about, backward or forward, in the throng. After a time the beams of the exit were pulled widely open, and the chief mahout entered, urging his mount to a run, and feigning what looked like a most foolhardy charge at the entire herd. When only a few yards away, he turned sharply and rushed back through the exit, thus acting as a leader for the herd, and the whole lot dashed simultaneously for the gateway. The ford of the river was well patrolled by tame elephants, and as the herd came rushing down the bank to the stream, they were kept in a confined space, where they swayed about in the cool water, grunting with satisfaction, and sending up a perfect fountain through their trunks. After a reasonable rest had been given them, they were cautiously driven into the jungle, and at a good distance from the city were turned loose, to wander as they pleased and seek again their old haunts. While all this was going on, the young tuskers left tied in the kraal were giving vent most strenuously to their feelings. Some, evidently having given themselves up to despair, stood quite still and uttered the most plaintive groans, while others seemed to go quite beside themselves with rage, rolling in the mud, straining every nerve at their ropes, and trumpeting wildly. One youngster, charging madly at the post to which he was tied, managed to break one of his tusks sharp off at the base, bringing down the most fearful amount of wrath on his head from the mahouts, as it knocked some fifty per cent. off his value. In many cases it seemed to be a particularly exasperating job to get these captives out of the kraal. Two trained mounts would finally be driven up on each side of the young elephant, and a sort of collar made of cocoanut-fiber rope was slipped under his neck. These collar ropes are crossed at the top, and an end is made fast to the neck of the tame mounts, which, being a good deal taller than the little chap in the middle, would be able to lift him nearly off his front legs by raising their heads, and so compel him to walk, the youngster's great act being to lie down and refuse to budge. The leg-ropes were then thrown off, and in this way they FIRST STEPS IN THE EDUCATION OF A YOUNGSTER IN THE INNER PEN made a start for the exit, with a third elephant bringing up the rear to push the captive forward in case of any signs of balking. When he was gracefully shoved through the gateway, two others would meet him outside the stockade, and he would be marched off across the river to the stables, to be chained up to his post, and there either sensibly accept his lot and start to learn to work, or else be starved into submission. In some few cases captivity seems to take all the spirit out of the beasts, and rather than endure it, they will refuse all food and water and finally die, a sort of martyr at the altar of free dom. The attachment the elephant has for his keeper is something marvelous. Almost incredible accounts are told of their devotion. Perhaps this is due to the inseparable life that the mahout and his elephant lead, for the keeper and his charge are con stantly together. Always the same hand feeds and tends him, always the same voice commands him, whether at work in the lumber-yards, charging through the jungle at a round-up, or moving slowly in some royal procession. If by any chance a mahout becomes too ill to work or dies, there is often the greatest difficulty to induce the elephant to accept a new master, and it is very seldom that the new man can gain the complete mastery over the brute that its original trainer had. There is a wrong impression prevalent that the Siamese regard the white elephant as a deity. That they hold it in special regard is true, for each Buddha, in passing through a series of transmigrations, is supposed to have inhabited the body of some white animal, either a monkey, a dove, or an elephant; and therefore a white animal is yet worshiped as having at some time been the superior of man. FROM time girls plucking leaves among the sparse tea princes the rest-house at Ratnapura, nestled close by Kelani's sullen lip, and were calling loudly for breakfast. The most striking ornament in the dining-room was a placard advertising American buckwheat cakes, and our roving eye fell upon a two-months'-old copy of the Kansas City "Star," sure signs of the miracle of mere living in our times. Ratnapura is the capital of the famous gem district, and our host, a wily Cingalese with a prodigious tortoise-shell comb in his back hair, showed us some rough stones-rubies, sapphires, and cats'-eyes-which he had "found," and would part with as a very special favor. Eastern have captured wild elephants by driving them into a stockade and noosing them from the backs of tamed beasts. It has been virtually the only means of replenishing their stables, for elephants in captivity do not breed well. Nevertheless, elephant kraals, the common name from Jeypore to Siam, have always been events of great interest and excitement. enormous size of the game, its inevitable danger, and the wonderful exhibition of brute intelligence often seen, account for the fascination of the sport. The Kraals are usually conducted by the minor prince or chieftain who holds in feudal tenure the villages of the district in which the kraal is held; and it was our privilege to be at the one last mentioned as the guests of Ratemahatmeya Meduanwella, lord of the villages of Panamure and Wellawe, in the province of Saba ramamuwa. We left Colombo at sunrise in a motorcar (I can never get over that; I am still near enough to my boyhood's dreaming over the pages of old Sir Samuel Baker not to accept that!) and swept along the muddy Kelani, alive in the early morning with cadjan boats and women bathing. It is a lovely, undulating valley; we saw coolies treading out the grain in the paddyfields, svelte arecas and talipot-palms smoking with dew, low hills thickly feathered with the dark-green plumage of young rubber-trees, and bevies of brown At noon we left the motor-car and took to the jungle on foot. Our route lay for eight miles along a path cut and burned through the densest jungle specially for this occasion, and toward dusk we came at last, drenched, yet thirsty, through dim, green aisles of tall ebony- and satinwoodtrees, to a wide meadow and the dark, swift stream that flows through it along the hem of Panamure. We saw a man far up in a giant palm-tree, clinging to the bole with his naked feet, cutting branches; then a great gaunt beast in the jungle twilight, feeding on the white, succulent trunks of banana-trees; and the pathetic figure of a baby elephant, captured only the week before, tugging hopelessly, but incessantly, at his ankle-ropes, and we knew that we were near the scene of the kraal. We crossed the stream on a bridge half crushed in by ponderous, pachydermous feet, and at once found ourselves among lines of bare brown men squatting under palm-leaf shelters. These were the beaters surrounding the wild herds. The long line of their fires dotted the dusk of the jungle, and the smell of wet wood smoke, flavored with the odors from their cooking-pots, made a kind of wild incense, strangely grateful and reminiscent to our civilized nostrils. At a distance an occasional faint snort, or the soft crackling of undergrowth followed by the thudding of some distant beater's drum, betrayed the locality where the quarry fed uneasily. THE LORD OF THE KRAAL AND HIS HEIR The plan and strategy of an elephant kraal is very simple. A wooded country, over which elephants rove and through which a suitable stream flows, is selected. A stockade from twelve to sixteen feet in height, and inclosing part of the stream and from four to six acres of jungle, is constructed of stout logs lashed together with rattan withes. At one side of the inclosure is a gate, with a V-shaped approach leading to it. When the stockade has been completed, the villagers arm themselves with guns, spears, tom-toms, old pots, horns-anything that will make a noise-and pour into the jungle to beat up the wild herds. They spread out in a circle, sometimes twenty-five miles long, but gradually lessening as the herds are driven nearer the stockade. The main object is to keep the elephants from reaching water except by entering the inclosure, and sometimes this is very difficult. Fires are kept alight at distances of a few feet; and sometimes at night, when the huge beasts charge in a body, the din of drums, bells, shouts, and horns is enough to daunt bolder spirits than the jungle denizens. Frequently a herd succeeds in breaking through and making its escape, occasionally not without a heavy loss to the enemy; but usually after being kept from water for three or four days their terrible thirst drives the poor creatures to the water within the stockade, and the gate closes forever between them and the dear free life of their native jungle. Panamure is a lovely little village, idling along the banks of its streamlet and cuddled in between two tall and softly wooded peaks as delicately rounded as the breasts of a woman. Its daughters are tender-eyed and domestic, performing the family washing at the front gate, while the men are of mild manner and much given to the business of gentling noosed elephants. They are Buddhists, but their real god is the snowy-bearded old Ratemahatmeya, who is also their father, lord of their lands, and of every grain of rice that goes into their mouths. We found the old gentleman waiting for us at the "hotel." He had laid aside the garments of his high estate and put on the long-tailed shirt of the coolie, as being more in keeping with one who had watched five nights in the jungle; but for all that he was a memorable figure, with his small, sharp nose and eyes like those of a sparrow-hawk, his patriarchal beard. and imperious voice. Even more distinguished-looking was his brother-in-law, the imperturbable Kalawane. Clad to lead the beaters in nothing but a breech-clout and his shining black beard, he seemed at that moment to have stepped out of the pages of Kipling especially for this occasion. They took us to get a first glimpse of |