He Has Also Great Numbers Of Young Elephants, Whose Teeth Are Not Yet Grown.

In this country they have a curious device for hunting or taking elephants, which is erected about two miles from the capital.

At that place there is a fine palace gilded all over, within which is a sumptuous court, and all round the outside there are a great number of places for people to stand upon to see the hunting. Near this place is a very large wood or forest, through which a great number of the king's huntsmen ride on the backs of female elephants trained on purpose, each huntsman having five or six of these females, and it is said that their parts are anointed with a certain composition, the smell of which so powerfully attracts the wild males that they cannot leave them, but follow them wheresoever they go. When the huntsmen find any of the wild elephants so entangled, they guide the females towards the palace, which is called a _tambell_, in which there is a door which opens and shuts by machinery, before which door there is a long straight passage having trees on both sides, so that it is very close and dark. When the wild elephant comes to this avenue, he thinks himself still in the woods. At the end of this avenue there is a large field, and when the hunters have enticed their prey into this field, they immediately send notice to the city, whence come immediately fifty or sixty horsemen, who beset the field all round.

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