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178 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
that when through the wiles of those that chase them,
anyone chanceth to fall into certaine deep pits which
they prepare for them, and to deceive them they cover
over with reeds, shrubs, and boughes, his fellowes will
speedily with all diligence bring great store of stone9
and peeces of timber that so they may helpe to recover
him out againe. But this beast hath in many other
effects such affinity with mans sufficiency, that would
I particularly trace out what experience hath taught, I
should easily get an affirmation of what I so ordinarily
maintaine, which is, that there is more difference found
betweene such and such a man, than betweene such a
beast and such a man. An Elephants keeper in a
private house of Syria was wont every meale to Steele
away halfe of the allowance which was allotted him ;
it fortuned on a day his master would needs feed him
himselfe, and having poured that just measure of barley
which for his allowance he had prescribed for him, into
his manger, the elephant, sternely eying his master,
with his truncke divided the provender in two equal
parts, and laid the one aside, by which he declared the
wrong his keeper did him. Another having a keeper,
who to encrease the measure of his provender was wont
to mingle stones with it, came one day to the pot which
with meat in it for his keepers dinner was seething over
the fire, and filled it up with ashes. These are but
particular effects, but that which all the world hath
seene, and all men know, which is, that in all the
armies that came out of the East, their chiefest strength
consisted in their elephants, by whom they reaped,
without comparison, farre greater effects than now
adaies we do by our great ordnance, which in a manner
holds their place in a ranged battel (such as have any
knowledge in ancient histories may easily guesse it to
be true),
—- si quidem Tyrio servire solebant
Anibalif et nostns ducibus, regique Molosso
Horum majores, et dorsoferre cohortes.
Partem alxquam belli, et euntem in preelia surriam.¹
1 Juv. Sat. xii. 107,