Footnote 1631: [(return)]
In the Philosophical Transactions for 1701, there is "An Account of the taking of Elephants in Ceylon, by Mr. STRACHAN, a Physician who lived seventeen years there," in which the author describes the manner in which they were shipped by the Dutch, at Matura, Galle, and Negombo. A piece of strong sail-cloth having been wrapped round the elephant's chest and stomach, he was forced into the sea between two tame ones, and there made fast to a boat. The tame ones then returned to land, and he swam after the boat to the ship, where tackle was reeved to the sail-cloth, and he was hoisted on board.
"But a better way has been invented lately," says Mr. Strachan; "a large flat-bottomed vessel is prepared, covered with planks like a floor; so that this floor is almost of a height with the key. Then the sides of the key and the vessel are adorned with green branches, so that the elephant sees no water till he is in the ship."—Phil. Trans., vol. xxiii. No. 227, p. 1051.
Footnote 1641: [(return)]
VALENTYN. Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, ch. xv. p. 272.
Footnote 1651: [(return)]
It is thus spelled by WOLF, in his Life and Adventures, p. 144. Corral is at the present day a household word in South America, and especially in La Plata, to designate an enclosure for cattle.
Footnote 1671: [(return)]
See SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT'S Ceylon, Vol. I. Pt. III. ch. xii. p. 415.
Footnote 1672: [(return)]
Another enormous mass of gneiss is called the Kuruminiagalla, or the Beetle-rock, from its resemblance in shape to the back of that insect, and hence is said to have been derived the name of the town, Kuruna-galle or Kornegalle.
Footnote 1681: [(return)]
FORBES quotes a Tamil conveyance of land, the purchaser of which is to "possess and enjoy it as long as the sun and the moon, the earth and its vegetables, the mountains and the River Cauvery exist."—Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. chap. ii. It will not fail to be observed, that the same figure was employed in Hebrew literature as a type of duration—" They shall fear thee, so long as the sun and moon endure; throughout all generations."—Psalm lxxii. 5, 17.
Footnote 1701: [(return)]
Pentaptera paniculata.
Footnote 1702: [(return)]
Entada pursætha.
Footnote 1761: [(return)]
Fire, the sound of a horn, and the grunting of a boar are the three things which the Greeks, in the middle ages, believed the elephant specially to dislike:
[Greek:
Pyr de ptoeitai kai krion kerasphoron,
Kai tôn moniôn tên boên tên athroan.]
—PHILE, Expositio de Elephante, 1. 177.
Footnote 1781: [(return)]
The other elephant, a fine tusker, which belonged to Dehigam Ratamahatmeya, continued in extreme excitement throughout all the subsequent operations of the capture, and at last, after attempting to break its way into the corral, shaking the bars with its forehead and tusks, it went off in a state of frenzy into the jungle. A few days after the Aratchy went in search of it with a female decoy, and watching its approach, sprang fairly on the infuriated beast, with a pair of sharp hooks in his hands, which he pressed into tender parts in front of the shoulder, and thus held the elephant firmly till chains were passed over its legs, and it permitted itself to be led quietly away.