ELEPHANT FIGHTS.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3222, 17 June 1879, Page 2

ELEPHANT FIGHTS.

I was firat ml.oduc?d to the Nawab .at an elephant fight, which he invited me to sea after the other Englishmen Had? lie* parted from Jmaghar. He had atafeut twenty elephants of all sizes, and I had ez&irmed 'the stud. ' The fighting was between both men and elephants, and elepli and elephao* b; The oal^oaylin which His Highness aad myself eat, accompanied by Bfc^uaddir, Salahindi, and other Mohammedan nobles lof his, Court, opened on tlie large waUed a^enain vrhieh the fighting took-place, and was' by no mea 1? c it of Teach of an elephant's Ixaak; but tJ guard against any aecidentfwjm that cause, we weie; provided with, jjajng spears, aid JBhauaddin showed tipaself particularly acre and couregeous »hfcn one targe elephant* did threaten ns>' The fighting was by torchlight, wh'eh added to tae extraordinary character of the scene. A large elegiunt in an, excited, r ife.U was let lopsts^iqto the a?ena, aad, surrounded by a ?arge .number of n-eri, eaoii Holding a iuTiih in one hand and a rery long, sharp sjiear in the other., Firit } one man would g.ve tlie elephant a prog with his spear, aad when it turned upon him another would arrest its attention Ly progging it ooltheAelher side;. «^Vhen^hard> preued the spearsmen had apertures in the ftfjjjlls of the arena into which they could escape, and accidents seldom happen, but one or two had rather narrow* escapes. If the elephant was excited when he entered, he becaaie ten times more so upd*r th» system of progging, and some difficulty was experienced in getting him out of the arena by exploding fireworks behind him, which also did not tend to soothe his mind; but he seemed, to;;«njoy the thing in a way, and it can hardly be said that ther j was any cruelty in the amusement, or that it wes as bad as fox hunting, in which men run the risk of breaking their necks, and the fox suffers not a lilitle\ It: was?a moonlesMti'ght,'afid a curious effect was produced by the in* furiated arimal rushing about with a swiftness rendered Remarkable by)lti]Ta9t proportions, amid tbe flickeilng light of (o'ches, the glare of fireworks, or the sie?dy blue li«iit of;some magnesium.wiro with which once or twice I 1;t up the arena. The bejewelled Mohammedan nobles around me were veryiipiatnirepque figures ; and so, in another way, were the wild-looking spearsmen; while the top of the walls of the arena were alitf, with the population of Junaghar. The fight* ing of elephants with elephants was a mere trial of strength and thef were placed" with a thick low wall, about three or four feet high between them. This was in order 46 prevent the] Jri&tor going to extremities, and killing his opponent* As it was, they only pushed against each other with their heads, aad pushedjeach other's trunks aside, or entwined their trunks, and so tried to bend elMf other's heads down. I wascurioui to see a fight between an elephant and a fine rhinoceros which the Ifawab had, and the quickness of wlidse motions was quite astonishing $ but was told that .every time the rhinoceros had been brought into the arena it h&d killed either a. man or an elephant, and so it was no longer brought out to do / battle.—Blackwood's Magazine. /