This surveillance is kept up day and night; and, during the latter, the wild elephant goes into the fields to feed, being closely followed by the seemingly treacherous females with their concealed drivers. When he returns to the forest as the day approaches, they follow: and as he lies down, and tries to go to sleep, they close in about him, and, at the command of the mahouts, keep him awake by various devices; all this performance resulting in thoroughly fatiguing the old fellow, and making him sleep very soundly when he does take a nap. Sometimes an elephant is fed with sugar-cane loaded with opium, to make him sleep; and, as soon as he has fallen into a deep slumber, the mahouts slip off behind, and securely tie his legs. Then the men in the rear come up, and rudely awaken him, slapping him on his haunches, and telling him facetiously to be of “good cheer.” The struggles of the trapped elephant are terrific, and they often injure themselves fatally. The tame elephants follow them up until they are thoroughly subdued, when they are securely bound, and led to the place where their training commences; and a few months later, they are carrying their human owners about, or working in the timber district, as if they had not been wild elephants so short a time before. A third method of taking elephants here is by the pitfall,—a barbarous custom, not now in general practice, as it always resulted in the loss by death of a large proportion of the catch. The plan was to dig pitfalls in the well-known and beaten tracts of elephants in the jungle, or under certain trees where they were known to congregate to feed. These traps, or holes, were generally ten and a half feet long by seven and a half broad, and fifteen feet deep, being purposely small, so that the imprisoned animals could not dig down the earth with their tusks, which they often did. In former years, there was, according to the government official, a perfect network of these pits in Mysore, and kept in order by the Mahárájah, the Forest Department, and others. The natives, as the Strolagas and Kurrabas, also made pits; and when an elephant was trapped, and they had no way of getting it out, the poor creatures often died before a tame elephant could be secured to give the required assistance. Through the endeavors of Sanderson, this inhuman practice has been given up; and all elephants caught are treated as humanely as possible. [Illustration: PLATE IX. ASIATIC ELEPHANT. _Page 77._]