of fifty-three elephants. The vivid description given in his book will well repay the reader, although too long for present

insertion.

The greatest interest lies in the individual custody of the huge prisoners within the kraal or keddah. Every elephant within this enclosure had to be separately secured with ropes, and this could only be effected through the assistance of the trained animals.

'On the day after the drive we commenced the work of securing the wild ones. Out of seventeen tame elephants belonging to the Mahárájah and Commissariat department which I had in camp, ten of the most steady and courageous males and females were told off for work in the enclosure, and the rest to bring fodder for the captives. Water was supplied to them through bamboos across the trench, emptying into an improvised trough. As none of the mahouts had seen elephants caught before, except single ones, they were rather nervous about entering with but ten among so many wild ones. Prode one pad elephant in advance, and I another, to encourage the men. The wild ones all mobbed together when we entered, and showed great interest in our elephants. After some little time we separated a few from the herd, and a mahout slipped off under cover of our tame elephants, and secured a noose round a young tusker's hind-leg. The tame elephants then dragged and pushed him backwards nearly to the gate of the keddah, where we secured him between two trees. We afterwards found, however, that it was much easier to hobble each elephant's hind-legs, and then to let it fatigue itself by dragging them after it for some time before we finally secured it, than to proceed as we did at first. In ten days we secured all the elephants. Calves were allowed to go loose with their mothers. The captives were led out of the enclosure by our elephants as fast as they were secured, across the river, and were picketed in the forest. Water-troughs were made for them of hollowed lengths of date-trees. These were pushed within their reach by a bamboo, and withdrawn by a rope to be again filled. Two men were appointed to each large elephant, and one to each small one. They made themselves shelters of boughs and mats, just beyond reach of their charges, and by constantly moving about them, singing to and feeding them, many could handle their elephants in a few days. Their elephants at first kicked or rushed at their captors (they very seldom struck with their trunks); but as soon as they found nothing was done to hurt them they gained confidence, and their natural timidity then made them submit without further resistance. There was a great variety of temperament observable amongst them. The small elephants, about a third grown (particularly females), gave the most trouble. The head jemadar ascribed it to their sex and time of life. "Wasn't it so with human

beings?" he said. "How troublesome women were compared to men, who were always quiet!" He was a Mussulmán and had several ladies in his establishment; so, as I was an inexperienced bachelor, I

did not presume to question his dictum. One young elephant lost the sole of one foot with three toes attached, after it had become loosened from her violence in continually kicking up the ground, and died soon afterwards. A mahout and I mounted a full-grown female on the sixth day after she was removed from the enclosure, without the presence of a tame elephant, which shows how soon elephants may be subjugated by kind treatment.'

Mr. Sanderson describes an unexpected peculiarity in the wild elephant,' that it seldom or never will attack a person who may approach it upon a tame elephant.' He met with one exception, which nearly proved fatal to himself, but, as a rule, the wild animal seems to be completely puzzled by the strange appearance of one of its own species mounted by a human being. The males with large tusks are generally respected by other members of the herd, from their formidable powers of attack; and the author gives a vivid description of a struggle between one of the trained elephants and a refractory tusker in the enclosure, which ended in the defeat and capture of the untrained animal.

The camping of a herd of elephants after they have been led out of the enclosure or trap, and are individually committed to the charge of their native attendants to be educated, is a sight of extreme interest. Mr. Sanderson's first capture realised a sum of 37547., which, after deducting 15567., the total expenditure from the commencement of operations in 1873, left a surplus to Government of 21987.'

6

The lately wild females, which are hobbled and secured by the leg to trees in the open forest that forms the encampment after capture, are sometimes the innocent cause of ruin to the independence of wild males, who, in their nocturnal rambles, are allured by the scent of the scattered prisoners. The author gives an exciting account of the capture of an elephantine lover.

'I was just getting up at dawn one morning, when a mahout rushed into my tent, saying, "Wild elephant! wild elephant!" and away he went again. The word he used for elephant might mean one or any number; and imagining a herd must have come, and was threatening interference with our captives, I ran down to the elephant-lines just as I was, in my flannel sleeping-suit. I found the men unshackling three of our best females, and seizing spare ropes; they now told me that a single male elephant was amongst the new ones picketed across the river. I jumped on to Dowlutpeary, behind the mahout. We only had girth-ropes on her, no pads, and not even dark-coloured blankets to cover ourselves. Crossing the river, we saw some mahouts in a tree, who pointed to the jungle on the left, where we found the elephant, a fine tusker, but with the right-hand tusk missing. He was a young elephant, and would be a prize indeed. We all lay flat

on

on our elephants' necks. Presently the tusker approached us, and my elephant's mahout turned Dowlutpeary round, with her stern towards him, that he might be less likely to see us. He put his trunk along her back, almost to where I sat. I took the goad from the mahout, so as to job his trunk if he came too near me, but he seemed satisfied. Bheemruttee and Pounpeary, the other two elephants, now made advances to him, under the direction of their mahouts, and he soon resigned himself unsuspiciously to our company.

'He now led us through the lines, interviewing several of the captured elephants, whose position he did not seem to be able to understand, and then retired to a shady tree, as the sun had risen. I signed to the hiding mahouts to get the other tame elephants quietly across the river, but to keep them out of sight; and as soon as the elephant stood perfectly still, my mahout and Bheemruttee's slipped off, whilst Pounpeary's rider and I kept the three elephants close against the wild one, to prevent his seeing the men. They had been at work tying his hind-legs for a considerable time, when he attempted to move, and found himself hobbled! The critical knot had just been tied, when he shifted his position! He was on the alert in an instant. Our elephants sheered off with great celerity, as he might have prodded them with his sharp tusk. The mahouts each threw a handful of dust in his face in derision before they retired, and now the fun began. Men came running from all directions with ropes, to the dismay of the tusker, who trumpeted shrilly and made off at an astonishing pace, scuffling along with his hind-legs, which were not very closely tied to each other, and which he could use to some extent. He rushed away through the low jungle, the whole of our elephants and men in hot pursuit. He was red with a peculiar earth with which he had been dusting himself, and formed a great contrast to the black tame elephants. Our tuskers were all slow, and we did not gain on the elephant for nearly half a mile. The men on foot were running in a crowd alongside him, to his intense terror. At last he turned into a thicket and halted, and we quickly surrounded him. Dowlutpeary and Bheemruttee again went in, and he was secured and marched back between four elephants in triumph. I sold him subsequently (for Government) for 1751.; had he had both tusks he would have brought double that sum.'

Mr. Sanderson remarks:

'Nor are there any elephants which cannot be easily subjugated, whatever their size or age. The largest elephants are frequently the most easily tamed, as they are less apprehensive than younger ones.'

It is unnecessary to quote further from the author's most interesting accounts of the wild and tame elephants; the extracts that have been made will fully illustrate the character of his work. His useful occupation of capturing and training wild elephants for the Indian Government was varied by many exciting encounters with those vicious rogue elephants whose

destruction

destruction was a boon to the villagers. All his stories are well told, and there is a vivacity in his descriptions, and a total absence of any attempt at fine writing which stamps all his pictures with the impression of truth.

The sportsman desirous of declaring war against heavy game will not neglect the practical advice given in Chapter XIV. upon the necessary battery, and the superiority of spherical bullets over conical projectiles for heavy rifles at short ranges as bone-smashers. Nothing can be better than the opinions expressed upon this all-important subject, upon which all theories have been completely exploded by undeniable experience. Drawings are given of the exact size of bullets, according to the calibre of various rifles. Diagrams are afforded of the elephant's skull, showing the true position of the brain, and the angles required to attain this mark according to the manner in which the head may be carried while in the act of charging. In fact, nothing is neglected in the shape of practical information in this most painstaking volume.

As Mr. Sanderson is particular in giving the actual measurements of all animals that he kills or captures, he is proportionately severe upon those writers who simply publish upon hearsay. There can be no question of the value of exactness, and all lovers of natural history should feel deeply indebted to any person who undertakes the personal trouble during the heat and fatigue of tropical hunting, of measuring and weighing the various animals.

The length and size of tigers have been carelessly stated by many authors, who would doubtless have shunned any wilful exaggeration. We frequently read of tigers that measured 12 feet from nose to tip of tail. Mr. Sanderson denies all such statements. He has had much experience, and his book relates his encounters with Maneaters' and others of the tribe; he has sought for testimony from hunters of high reputation, and he has never proved to his own satisfaction that any tiger of such enormous dimensions as 12 feet exists in India. He quotes a well-known authority, Dr. Jerdon's Mammals of India,' as thoroughly correct. He says: The average size of a full-grown male tiger is from 9 feet to 9 feet, but I fancy there is very little doubt that occasionally tigers are killed 10 feet in length, and perhaps a few inches over that.'

'I know two noted Bengal sportsmen who can each count the tigers slain by them by hundreds, whose opinions entirely corroborate Jerdon. My own experience can only produce a tiger of 9 feet 6 inches, and a tigress of 8 feet 4 inches as my largest.

'I have only weighed one tiger, a very bulky well-fed male. He weighed

weighed by two different scales 349 lbs., or 25 stone all but half a pound.'

In conclusion we can thoroughly recommend Thirteen Years with the Wild Beasts of India' as a sound and practical work, abounding in interest for all classes of readers. The illustrations are few, but superior to the average publications, and the pictures of the principal animals are from actual photographs of the living creatures. Mr. Sanderson has returned to his exciting profession in India; and the readers of his first book will look forward with pleasure to the publication of his future experiences with the Wild Beasts of India.'

ART. IV.-Petrarch. By Henry Reeve. Edinburgh and London, 1878.

THE

HE true position of Petrarch in the history of modern culture has recently been better understood, owing to a renewed and careful examination of his Latin works in prose and verse. Not very long ago he lived upon the lips of all educated people as the lover of Laura, the poet of the Canzoniere,' the hermit of Vaucluse, the founder of a school of sentimental sonneteers called Petrarchisti. This fame of Italy's first lyrist still belongs to Petrarch, and remains perhaps his highest title to immortality, seeing that the work of the artist outlives the memory of services rendered to civilization by the pioneer of learning. Yet we now know that Petrarch's poetry exhausted but a small portion of his intellectual energy, and was included in a vaster and far more universally important life-task. What he did for the modern world was not merely to bequeath to his Italian imitators masterpieces of lyrical art unrivalled for perfection of workmanship, but to open out for Europe a new sphere of mental activity. Petrarch is the founder of Humanism, the man of genius who, standing within the threshold of the middle ages, surveyed the kingdom of the modern spirit, and by his own inexhaustible industry in the field of study determined the future of the Renaissance. He not only divined but, so to speak, created an ideal of culture essentially different from that which satisfied the medieval world. By bringing the men of his own generation once more into sympathetic relation with antiquity, he gave a decisive impulse to that great European movement which restored freedom, self-consciousness, and the faculty of progress to the human intellect. To assert that without Petrarch this new direction could not have been taken by the nations at the close of the middle ages would be hazardous.

The