Page:Voyage from France to Cochin-China- in the Ship Henry.djvu/26

Rh but we were too numerous to have much to apprehend from their attack. Two men armed, the one with a sabre and the other with a short spear, seldom fail to overcome that terrible animal without any injury. Two men are also sufficient to overcome the elephant, when found at a distance from the flock, as frequently happens, when he is feeding at the roots of the hills. The two hunters, armed with guns of large bore, advance towards the elephant, from opposite points, to within thirty paces of him. Then making the concerted signal, one of them sets up a shout: the elephant, without seeming to be alarmed, raises his head, and looks steadily at the shouter, who fires at his forehead. If the animal neither fall nor beat all wounded, he makes after the hunter, who with great agility escapes. The other hunter, who has followed the elephant, then fires at him behind; the animal turning round at the shot, receives another from the first man. By this reciprocal attack the poor elephant is in time mortally wounded, which often happens at the second or third shot: for the boldness and dexterity of the Cochin-Chinese hunter in this exercise is surprising. The flesh of the elephant is eaten in the country. The trunk and the feet are esteemed peculiar delicacies, and as such are sent to the princes and other great men. I ate of those parts at the table of the mandarin of strangers, and found them pretty good.

Cochin-China is rich in minerals; but only two mines are worked, both for the emperor's account; it being a capital crime to open any other, or even to speak on the subject. I understood, however, that near Phuyenne are some gold mines, so rich that four or five pounds of ore would yield twenty ounces of pure metal. But the government, dreading the effects of European covetousness, employs every method to conceal the situation of the mines.

Returning on-board our ship in the morning, we again went on-shore, to lodgings prepared for us by the Fantou, at Ton-Han. Our next excursion was to the marble rocks and quarries, situated eight miles off in the south-south-east part of the bay. Shooting as we went along, we visited the very curious and beautiful grottos, the work of nature and time. These rocks are not far from the sea, which, it is highly probable, at some remote epoch, covered the whole, although they now rise two hundred fathoms above the water. These rocks are however erroneously named; for they consist not of marble, but of bastard alabaster (pseudalabastrites) a translucent gypseous stone, of a very inferior consistency to marble; and it is dressed into different shapes by the inhabitants of the environs. At these rocks, among some bushes, I for the first