Tuesday, 20 January 2015

The Filipino Jesuits' drunk gamboling elephant

It seems that Jesuits in the Philippines used to have a pet elephant. Although it provided a lesson to people in decorum in some respects, it had a taste for wine and would, after "siphon[ing] out one entire cask at one time ... [show] his joy with a thousand gambols".

I am sorry to say that my source records that the Jesuits mis-treated this merry little elephant and eventually starved it to death for some misdemeanour or other.

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