But besides these trees, capable of most resistance, there are in these vast forests within the rains, trees of a softer consistence, and of a very succulent quality, which seem to be destined for his principal food. For the purpose of gaining the highest branches of these, his upper lip is capable of being lengthened out so as to increase his power of laying hold with this in the same manner as the elephant does with his trunk. With this lip, and the assistance of his tongue, he pulls down the upper branches which have most leaves, and these he devours first; having stript the tree of its branches, he does not therefore abandon it, but placing his snout as low in the trunk as he finds his horn will enter, he rips up the body of the tree, and reduces it to thin pieces, like so many laths; and when he has thus prepared it, he embraces as much of it as he can in his monstrous jaws, and twists it round with as much ease as an ox would do a root of celery, or any such pot-herb or garden-stuff. Such, too, is the practice of the elephant; we saw, at every step in these immense forests, trees in different progresses of this operation, some divested of their leaves and branches, and cut over as far down the trunk as was soft, and pliable, and was capable of being snapped off by one bite, without splitting or laceration; others, where the trunk was cut into laths or ribbands, some of which were ate in part, others prepared, but which had been left from satiety or apprehension of danger, a feast without labour for the next that should find it. In some places we saw the trees all consumed, but a stump that remained about a foot from the ground, and these were of the most succulent kind, and there we distinctly perceived the beginning of the first laceration from the bottom; and what, beside the testimony of the hunters, confirmed this fact beyond doubt was, that in several places large pieces of the teeth of elephants, and horns of the rhinoceros were brought to us, partly found lying on the ground at the foot of these trees, and part sticking in them. Neither the elephant nor rhinoceros eat grass; if their food depended upon that, many times in the year they must be reduced to a state of starving, for the grass is naturally parched up in some seasons, and at others burnt purposely by the Shangalla. It is true, that in Europe their chief food is hay; trees cannot be every day spoiled for them in the quantity they would need. But this is not their natural food, more than the sugar and the aquavitæ that are given them here.