All kings and potentates could not afford to keep up such an expensive establishment; and many were the tricks that were resorted to, to make a few elephants afford a great display. When Mr. Bell, the famous traveller, visited Pekin, he was entertained by the officials with what was intended to be a magnificent display of elephants. “After dinner,” he says, “we saw the huge elephants, richly caparisoned in gold and silver stuffs. Each had a driver. We stood about an hour admiring these sagacious animals, who, passing before us at equal distances, returned again behind the stables, and so on, round and round, till there seemed to be no end to the procession. The plot, however, was discovered by the features and dress of the riders: the chief keeper told us there were only sixty of them.”
An Eastern account of the embassy from Shah Rohk, son of Tamerlane, to the emperor of China, describes the grand feast in China on New-Year’s Day, A.D. 1420. “The elephants were adorned with a magnificence not to be expressed, with silver seats and standards, and armed men upon their backs. Fifty of them carried the musicians: these were preceded or followed by fifty thousand, in profound silence and order.” Undoubtedly the same mystification was adopted with the ambassadors as in the case of Mr. Bell, only it was more successful.
In Rome, Julius Cæsar and his successors employed the elephant to draw them in gorgeous chariots. When Cæsar celebrated his victories in Gaul, elephants were used to carry torches to illuminate the processions, which generally took place after dark. In celebrating his African triumphs, the captured spoils were borne upon chariots of ivory; and when Pompey returned from his victories in Africa, he was borne in a chariot that was drawn by four elephants of the largest size, to the very gates of Rome.
Gibbon thus describes the triumph of Aurelian (A.D. 274):—
“The pomp was opened by twenty elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most curious animals from every climate of the north, the east, and the south. They were followed by one thousand six hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The triumphal car of Aurelian on this memorable occasion (it had formerly been used by a Gothic king) was drawn either by four stags or by four elephants.”
The most remarkable display of elephants in modern times, is undoubtedly that made in honor of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India. At Kandy, Ceylon, he witnessed the wonderful festival of Perahara, in which long processions of these noble animals passed in review, caparisoned in the most costly manner, bearing howdahs that defy description. One of the latter, which was presented to him at Jyepore, was of silver, and a work of art in all its parts. At Agra, the prince, mounted upon a huge elephant, covered with costly trappings, passed in between a double line of elephants, bearing the native princes and men of rank, probably the most imposing spectacle of his visit. At the rehearsal of the Perahara at Kandy, the prince fed the great elephants with sugar-cane, and with his suite, and numbers of ladies and gentlemen, reviewed the host of giants. ([See Plate XX.])
At Lahore his Royal Highness was greeted with salutations from long lines of gayly bedecked elephants, which, with crowds of natives, extended for a great distance along the drive: and finally, at Colombo, two huge pachyderms were stationed, face to face, upon opposite sides of the road, bearing upon their backs various ornamentations and placards of welcome; and, when the prince appeared, the huge animals raised their trunks aloft, and joined them over the road, bearing aloft a crown. Under this living arch, the austere company of guests and guards passed. ([See Plate XIX.])
Many of the conquests and ceremonies of the early days are commemorated on medals, described in [Chap. XX.]; and fine bass-reliefs are in existence, telling the story of the wonderful deeds in which the elephant took no minor part.
PLATE XIX.