I have always pictured the Rangers as being an elite force, not run-of-the-mill troops of Gondor's army. As a result, it is not surprising that Rangers should be able to defeat troops in roughly equal numbers even if they are less well-equipped, especially if their attack has the element of surprise.

The attack upon the Haradrim in this chapter is a raid, not an assault. While raids are normally conducted at night and are more effective at night, they can be effective at any time of day in which the enemy is not prepared for an attack. Perhaps the Rangers have been raiding by night continually the past week, and this time they make an attack by day.

I have always wondered whether the swarthy Southrons being associated with evil is an element of racism or not. Clearly there is racism in Middle Earth, and a big point is made of the cosmetic features of the various kindreds of one race compared to others of the same race. We are normally to assume that Elves and Men look different enough that they are easy to tell apart, but of course Aragorn's Rangers, the Grey Company, are confused for Elves by the Rohirrim, so that can't always work. Still, Men are Men: they may be a pretty bad lot as a general rule but they are not irredeemable. Certainly Men are better than Orcs, and in a few chapters I will wonder whether or not even Orcs are truly irredeemable (it's an even more uphill battle for them than for Men).

Due to the nature of the tactics, I am sure that the Rangers will leave their dead. They are raiding. Now, in a historical medieval battlefield, the bodies of the dead would be looted for everything valuable (even clothes, which could be repaired), and the naked corpses burred en masse. The Rangers don't have time for a salvage operation. In a normal war, the Harradrim would - but this isn't a normal war. Sauron also wants speed. The bodies may be left to the buzzards.

The Oliphaunt is Tolkien's usual grandiose, fantastical prose, as others have noted. However, it adds to the continual sense of loss: there aren't any more of these animals. They are extinct. Our world is a lost world, a failing world.