For many years after the capture of India by the British, elephants were employed by the princes and nobles; but now their use is prohibited in Calcutta, on account of the many accidents that resulted; and in British India the animal is rarely seen on occasions of ceremony, except at the courts of native princes who still have some authority. Elephants were employed in the ceremonies of the Juggernaut; five elephants preceding the car containing the idol, “bearing towering flags, dressed in crimson caparisons, and having bells hanging to their caparisons.” At the time when the two sons of Tippoo were received as hostages by Lord Cornwallis, they approached his lordship mounted on a richly ornamented elephant, and seated in a silver howdah. According to a contemporaneous writer, at the Vizier Ally’s wedding, 1795, “The procession was grand beyond conception. It consisted of about twelve hundred elephants, richly caparisoned, drawn up in a regular line, like a regiment of soldiers. About one hundred elephants in the centre had howdahs, or castles, covered with silver: in the midst of these appeared the nabob, mounted on an uncommonly large elephant, within a howdah covered with gold, richly set with precious stones.” The Moguls were particularly fond of parade and display, and daily they had an elephant dress-parade; all their finest elephants being marched before them, harnessed in the most magnificent manner. The elephant-parades at the court of Aurengzebe have been described by Bernier, and those of the court of Jehanghir by Sir Thomas Rowe. The latter says, “His greatest elephants were brought before him, some of which, being lord elephants, had their chains, bells, and furniture of gold and silver, attended with gilt banners and flags; and eight or ten elephants waiting on him, clothed in gold, silver, and silk. Thus passed about twelve companies, most richly furnished; the first elephant having all the plates on his head and breast set with rubies and emeralds, being a beast of a wonderful stature and beauty. They all bowed down before the king.” The secret of this adulation was not any particular respect to the king, as might be expected from this description. When the elephant passed its royal master, the driver perched upon its neck pricked him so violently with his instrument, that the elephant bent its knee, raised its trunk, and roared lustily with pain.