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with his elephant, the one remarkably large and strong, and the other comparatively small and weak, were at the well together; the small elephant had been provided by his master with a bucket for the occasion, which he carried at the end of his proboscis; but the larger animal, being destitute of this necessary vessel, either spontaneously, or by desire of his keeper, seized the bucket, and easily wrested it from his less powerful fellow-servant. The latter was too sensible of his inferiority openly to resent the insult, though it is obvious that he felt it; but great squabbling and abuse ensued between the keepers. At length the weaker animal, watching the opportunity when the other was standing with his side to the well, retired backwards a few paces in a very quiet, unsuspicious manner, and then rushing forward with all his might, drove his head against the side of the other, and fairly pushed him into the well.

'It may easily be imagined that great inconvenience was immediately experienced, and serious apprehensions quickly followed that the water in the well, on which the existence of so many seemed in a great measure to depend, would be spoiled, or at least injured, by the unwieldy brute thus precipitated into it; and as the surface of the water was nearly twenty feet below the common level, there did not appear to be any means that could be adopted to get the animal out by main force, at least without injuring him. There were many feet of water below the elephant, who floated with ease on its surface, and experiencing considerable pleasure from his cool retreat, evinced but little inclination even to exert what means he might possess in himself of escape.

'A vast number of fascines had been employed by the army in conducting the siege, and at length it occurred to the elephantkeeper that a sufficient number of these (which may be compared to bundles of wood) might be lowered into the well to make a pile, which might be raised to the top, if the animal could be instructed as to the necessary means of laying them in regular succession under his feet. Permission having been obtained from the engineer-officers to use the fascines, which were at the time put away in several piles of very considerable height, the keeper had to teach the elephant the lesson which, by means of that extraordinary ascendency these men attain over the elephants, joined with the intellectual resources of the animal itself, he was soon enabled to do, and the elephant began quickly to place each fascine, as it was lowered to him, successively under him, until in a little time he was enabled to stand upon them. By this time, however, the cunning brute, enjoying the pleasure of his situation, after the heat and partial privation of water to which he had been lately exposed (they are observed in their natural state to frequent rivers, and to swim very often), was unwilling to work any longer, and all the threats of his keeper could not induce him to place another fascine. The man then opposed cunning to cunning, and began to caress and praise the elephant;

and what he could not effect by threats, he was enabled to do by the repeated promise of plenty of rack. Incited by this, the animal again went to work, raised himself considerably higher, until, by a partial removal of the masonry round the top of the well, he was enabled to step out. The whole affair occupied about fourteen

hours.'

Such are the accounts, which our limits will permit us to glean, as illustrative of the disposition and manners of this most powerful and intelligent animal. Making every allowance for the exaggeration of the writers, these records of his docility, obedience, attachment, and sagacity place him in a very favourable light; and though somewhat prone to resentment, the results are seldom fatal, save where the provocation has been unusually great. On the whole, he is a patient and tractable animal, especially useful under a burning sun, and in a country where there are no roads; presuming always that there is an abundant and cheap supply of forage. He can never, however, become so endeared to man as the dog and the horse, for these are fitted by their constitution and habits to become the inhabitants of almost every region, whilst the elephant must ever be confined to the range which nature has originally assigned him. As a domestic animal, he can at best be but the associate of a half-civilised existence; for so soon as man begins to construct roads and invent machines, to cultivate his lands and economise the produce, the elephant becomes not only useless, but positively detrimental. Already he has receded from the interior of India, and is only found wild in the forests of Dshemna, Nepaul, some parts of Ghauts Tarrai, in Ava, and in Ceylon. In Africa, where he is hunted for his spoils, and not tamed, he has disappeared from Cape Colony, from the northern regions of that continent, and from Senegambia; and will in all likelihood be the more eagerly hunted the scarcer he becomes. As portion of our terrestrial fauna, the elephant may linger on for a century or two; but to us he appears rapidly approaching the period of his extinction-a period when he must pass away before adverse conditions, in like manner as his former congeners, the mammoth and mastodon.

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N the long European struggle arising out of the French revolution, and ending at Waterloo in 1815, there was no single campaign more eventful, and at the same time more instructive to mankind, than the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812. Never, perhaps, was such an amount of the evils and horrors of war concentrated into the same space of time; and never was the saying more strikingly illustrated, that whatever mad pranks kings choose to play, the people must pay the piper. Very few now living can have any recollection of the profound impression made by those events at the time; to ninetenths of the present generation the campaign of 1812 lies in the dim past, and, if known to them at all, is known only from the dozen sentences devoted to it in our school histories.

It may not therefore be unwholesome to turn back to this page in the annals of war, and trace it a little more at large; especially at a time when the warlike passion which seemed at one time to be dying out, has once more taken possession of civilised nations or their rulers. The terrible struggles of recent years, which have taken place under our own eyes, we are prevented from seeing in their true light by the biassing passions they excite; we shall be able to bring a calmer judgment to bear on a picture of the past.

From the time that Napoleon Bonaparte found himself, first as Consul (1799), and then as Emperor (1804), virtual Dictator of France, and wielding without control her gigantic insurrectionary energies, which no other power seemed able to resist, he began to cherish vast

No. 55.

I

projects for the aggrandisement of his country and of himself-for his own greatness and that of France he always considered as identical. All the nations of Europe (Europe first, but ultimately the whole earth) were to be brought into one federation, following the lead of France—that is, governing themselves according to the ideas of her ruler. They were to be induced, if possible, to come into this association voluntarily, but those who refused were to be compelled. Like ignorant and wayward children, they were to be chastised and trained to walk in the way they should go. It was all for their good. Napoleon's aim was that they should be all ultimately prosperous and happy; but they must learn to seek their prosperity and happiness in his way, and not in their own. It was on the plea that they were necessary to the carrying out of his grand ideas of universal beneficence, that he justified to himself and his contemporaries his most arbitrary and tyrannical measures; and the worshippers of his genius continue thus to justify, or at least excuse, them to the present day.

The chief obstacle to the execution of Napoleon's plans was Great Britain. Any opposition from the neighbouring continental nations was at once overcome by marching an army into their territories. Britain, surrounded by her ocean-rampart and her fleets, continued to set him at defiance. And not only did she resist his dictation herself, but by forming coalitions and furnishing subsidies, she was constantly stirring up armed resistance among the other nations. Hence the deep-seated enmity of Napoleon to Great Britain, and the desperate efforts he made to crush her. After the rupture of the peace, or rather truce, of Amiens in 1803, he began to make immense preparations for the invasion of England. His great difficulty was to get a fleet sufficiently strong to protect the transport of his army across the Channel from Boulogne, where it was assembled. During the summer of 1805 all was ready for the attempt, and Napoleon wrote to his Minister of Marine that if the fleet would appear and make him master of the Channel for twelve hours, England was no more. But Admiral Villeneuve was unable to elude the vigilance of Nelson; and at last the battle of Trafalgar (October 1805) put an end to the project of invasion.

But if England could not be reached by direct assault, she might be ruined indirectly. Her riches, derived from commerce, were the source of her power. Ruin her commerce, and she could no longer fight herself, or bribe others to fight. Accordingly, when the events of 1805 and 1806 had crushed Austria and Prussia, and put the whole of Germany as well as the Italian peninsula at his feet, he began to develop his famous 'Continental System,' by which all the countries of Europe were to be induced or compelled to exclude British merchandise from their ports. A decree, issued from Berlin in November 1806, declared the whole of the British Islands to be in a state of blockade, and all vessels trading to them to be liable to capture.

It also shut out all British vessels and produce both from France and from all the other countries adhering to her. The British government retaliated by 'Orders in Council,' which virtually prohibited all commerce between the states that embraced the continental system, unless in vessels bound for some British harbour; and Napoleon replied by another decree from Milan (1807), still more rigorous than the first. The Berlin decree was put in force at once in Italy, Holland, and the north of Germany; Prussia and Russia gave their adhesion to the system at the treaty of Tilsit in 1807; and Spain and Austria in 1808. Portugal, summoned to join the commercial league against Great Britain, yielded so far as to close her ports against British ships, but refused to confiscate the property of British residents: for this she was invaded (1807), and the reigning family deposed. In short, no government was to be allowed to exist that would not co-operate with Napoleon in the object dearest to his heart —to crush perfidious Albion, that enemy of the human race which alone stood between Europe and the glorious future that he was preparing for it. This is the key to the whole policy of Napoleon at this time. It accounts for his most wanton and apparently impolitic aggressions. It was because his brother Louis, whom he had made king of Holland, was reluctant to carry out with rigour the continental system against England, that he was obliged to leave his kingdom (1810), which was then annexed to France.

The continental system produced far more commercial distress on the continent than it did in England. It was impossible, even by the most stringent measures, to exclude English goods; a contraband traffic was organised, by which immense quantities were still introduced, but at greatly enhanced prices; and Napoleon himself soon found it useful to convert the evasion of his own decree into a source of revenue, by granting licences, for large sums, for the sale of British goods on the continent.

The hardships of the continental system were felt in Russia no less than in the rest of Europe. It was to enable him to carry out his schemes fully, that Napoleon had been so eager to court the alliance of Alexander, emperor of Russia. At the treaty of Tilsit, (1807), and at a subsequent interview at Erfurt (1808), the two monarchs divided the sway of Europe between them. Alexander gratified Napoleon by joining the league against British commerce, and allowed him to dispose of the Spanish peninsula and the other states of Western Europe at his pleasure; while Napoleon gave his assent to the ambitious designs of Russia against Sweden and Turkey, and agreed to forego his intention of restoring the kingdom of Poland. But the cordial understanding between the two potentates was of short duration. Alexander, who was no less ambitious and aggressive than Napoleon, but whose ambition and aggressiveness were more stealthy and better cloaked, soon began to be jealous and alarmed at the rapid strides of his brother despot. The

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