Note 137 — Chapter III · CONDUCT IN CAPTIVITY.

See Schlegel’s Essay on the Elephant and the Sphynx, Classical Journal, No. lx. Although the trained elephant nowhere appears upon the monuments of the Egyptians, the animal was not unknown to them, and ivory and elephants are figured on the walls of Thebes and Karnac amongst the spoils of Thothmes III. and the tribute paid to Rameses I. The Island of Elephantine, in the Nile, near Assouan (Syene) is styled in hieroglyphical writing “The Land of the Elephant;” but as it is a mere rock, it probably owes its designation to its form. See Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. pl. iv.; vol. v. p. 176. Above the first cataract of the Nile are two small islands, each bearing the name of Phylæ;—quære, is the derivation of this word at all connected with the Arabic term fil? See ante, p. 4, note. The elephant figured in the sculptures of Nineveh is universally as wild, not domesticated.