and often with tremendous effect. Sultan
Akbar had many of these sword-bearing
elephants in his array. How such a warrior
would mow down the ranks of the "common
men"! If we add to this, the huge scarlet,
white, or blue-painted ears flapping up and
down, and the warrior aforesaid being mad
drunk, it needs no very lively imagination to
feel what an alarming object he would present
in the thick of a battle-field.

At this statement Bibi Sahibeh was
observed to flourish her proboscis with an
excited air, and her daughter made a very
curious sort of caper.

According to Ælian, the elephants of an
army were regularly organised in brigades.
The Phalanx, which was the full corps, consisted
of sixty-four elephants; the Caterarchy
consisted of thirty-two; the Elephantarchy,
of sixteen; the Ilarchy, of eight; the
Epitherarchy, of four; the Thearchy, of two;
while a single war-elephant, whether with his
tower of armed men, or his bells and flags,
steel tusks and whirling scymetar, was
designated as the Zoarchy. Colonel Armandi is
of opinion that the Phalanx, when in the
neighbourhood of the enemy, was usually
arranged in a solid square, so that it might
readily change fronts, or perform an evolution
according to the point at which the attack
was made; he thinks, moreover, that in
advancing to an assault, they deployed into
Ilarchies, and were always in single file. One
can easily see reason for the latter, as such
a personage with all his fighting-gear about
him, would need considerable "elbow-room."
The commandant-general of the Elephant
Phalanx was always a personage of great
importance, and was often so puffed up with
the enormity of his position, that Terence
makes a jest of it in his "Eunuchus."

Many were the devices of the ancient
potentates and generals who were opposed
by armies possessing fighting elephants, to
accustom their soldiers to compete with
these strange colossal warriors. Some of
their methods were very ingenious, and some
very clumsy and laughable. Perseus, King of
Macedonia, wishing to accustom his cavalry
to the sight of these animals, caused a number
of wooden ones to be constructed; but, as they
had all the clumsiness, with none of the vigour
of real elephants, the least attempt to put them
into motion, produced nothing but shouts of
laughter from the whole army, to the great
mortification and rage of his majesty, until
one of them falling with solemnity on his
lumbering side, the king was obliged to join
in the general merriment. A very different
method was adopted by Cæsar. Seeing the
apprehensions entertained by his soldiers of
the prowess of these elephants, in the opposing
army, he caused one to be brought into the
encampment, made the soldiers carefully
examine all its vulnerable points; then covering
it with its usual armour, made them again
consider by what means they could best
give it a mortal wound. Arrows, javelins,
and very long spears were fabricated for the
purpose of attack, and soldiers were trained
to advance in two parties, one in front, and
one in the rear, so as to distract the creature's
attention. Cæsar's victory at Thapsus was
the consequence of these arrangements. So
well had the Roman soldiers been trained,
that a veteran, in the heat of this battle,
having been seized by the trunk of an elephant,
and lifted into the air, to be furiously disposed
of by a second movement, the soldier, with
great presence of mind, instantly made a slash
with his sword across the trunk, and followed
up his blows till the elephant loosed his hold
and retreated with loud cries. Horsemen,
were also trained to attack the elephants, and
corps of slingers. The latter, however, were of
little avail against the creature; but they were
very useful in knocking the conductor off his
"perch," and so leaving the elephant without
his accustomed guide. Subsequently, a variety
of equally ingenious and hideous devices were
adopted to compete with the war-elephants
of Oriental armies. Soldiers were cased in
armour covered with sharp spikes, so that
the elephants could not seize them with their
trunks, and such a soldier being armed with
an axe would often succeed in hamstringing
his ponderous foe. Carrobalistas—a sort of
engine for heaving large stones and pieces of
rock—were sometimes brought against the
elephants; but it was found very difficult to
hit them when they were in motion, both from
the rude nature of the engine, and also that the
elephants were adroit, and well understood a
"dodge."  Torches, fiery darts, and javelins
with lighted combustibles affixed to them,
were employed with great success; but the
most effective of all means of terrifying the
war-elephants was put into operation when
Khosroo the Great was besieging Edessa. His
elephants, with their towers, had advanced
close to the ramparts, so as to enable the men
in them to throw a platform from the top, on to
the walls, across which the soldiers, by means of
ladders up to the towers, were preparing to
ascend, when a Roman soldier suddenly
proposed to the general that a live hog should be
hung out over the walls in the face of the
elephants. This was done, and the whirling
and kicking hog instantly screaming ten
thousand murders, put the elephants into such
consternation, that they turned about and fled
away with towers and men and ladders, and
nothing could induce them to advance again
to the assault. The manœuvre of "the hog"
was horribly performed when Antipater
besieged Megara with a great phalanx of
elephants. The Megareans smeared a number
of hogs with resin and gum, and setting them
on fire, drove them all, like so many shrieking
flames, among the ranks of the besiegers;
whereat the elephants Instantly fled with cries
of horror—and no great disgrace to them
neither. Most of the horses followed their
example.