Chapter XV: Appendix: To Chapter III (2)

[92] WOLF’S _Life and Adventures_, p. 151.

[93] _Private Letter_ from Dr. DAVY, author of _An Account of the Interior of Ceylon_.

[94] The _Colombo Observer_ for March 1858, contains an offer of a reward of twenty-five guineas for the destruction of an elephant which infested the Rajawallé coffee plantation, in the vicinity of Kandy. Its object seemed to be less the search for food, than the satisfying of its curiosity and the gratification of its passion for mischief. Mr. TYTLER, the proprietor, states that it frequented the jungle near the estate, whence it was its custom to sally forth at night for the pleasure of pulling down buildings and trees, “and it seemed to have taken a spite at the pipes of the waterworks, the pillars of which it several times broke down—its latest fancy being to wrench off the taps.” This elephant has since been shot.

[95] CUVIER, _Règne Animal_. “Les Mammifères,” p. 280.

[96] _Table Talk_, p. 63.

[97] The elephant is believed by the Singhalese to express his uneasiness by his voice, on the approach of _rain_; and the Tamils have a proverb,—“_Listen to the elephant, rain is coming._”

[98] Yokes borne on the shoulder with a package at each end.

[99] The tutelary spirit of the sacred mountain, Adam’s Peak.

[100] The Singhalese hold the belief, that twigs taken from one bush and placed on another growing close to a pathway, ensure protection to travellers from the attacks of wild animals, and especially of elephants. Can it be that the latter avoid the path, on discovering this evidence of the proximity of recent passengers?

[101] A rogue elephant.

[102] Woman’s robe.

[103] The figured cloth worn by men.

[104] To persons like myself, who are not addicted to what is called “sport,” the statement of these wholesale slaughters is calculated to excite surprise and curiosity as to the nature of a passion that impels men to self-exposure and privation, in a pursuit which presents nothing but the monotonous recurrence of scenes of blood and suffering. Sir S. BAKER, who has recently published, under the title of “_The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_,” an account of his exploits in the forest, gives us the assurance that “_all real sportsmen are tender-hearted men, who shun cruelty to an animal, and are easily moved by a tale of distress_,” and that although man is naturally bloodthirsty, and a beast of prey by instinct, yet that the true sportsman is distinguished from the rest of the human race by his “_love of nature and of noble scenery_.” In support of this pretension to a gentler nature than the rest of mankind, the author proceeds to attest his own abhorrence of cruelty by narrating the sufferings of an old hound, which, although “toothless,” he cheered on to assail a boar at bay, but the poor dog recoiled “covered with blood, cut nearly in half, with a wound fourteen inches in length, from the lower part of the belly, passing up the flank, completely severing the muscles of the hind leg, and extending up the spine; his hind leg having the appearance of being nearly off.” In this state, forgetful of the character he had so lately given of the true sportsman, as a lover of nature and a hater of cruelty, he encouraged “the poor old dog,” as he calls him, to resume the fight with the boar, which lasted for an hour, when he managed to call the dogs off; and, perfectly exhausted, the mangled hound crawled out of the jungle with several additional wounds, including a severe gash in his throat. “He fell from exhaustion, and we made a litter with two poles and a horsecloth to carry him home.” (P. 314.) If such were the habitual enjoyments of this class of sportsmen, their motiveless massacres would admit of no manly justification. In comparison with them one is disposed to regard almost with favour the exploits of a hunter like Major ROGERS, who is said to have applied the value of the ivory obtained from his encounters towards the purchase of his successive regimental commissions, and had, therefore, an object, however disproportionate, in his slaughter of 1,400 elephants.

One gentleman in Ceylon, not less distinguished for his genuine kindness of heart, than for his marvellous success in shooting elephants, avowed to me that the eagerness with which he found himself impelled to pursue them had often excited surprise in his own mind; and although he had never read the theory of Lord Kames, or the speculations of Vicesimus Knox, he had come to the conclusion that the passion thus excited within him was a remnant of the hunter’s instinct, with which man was originally endowed to enable him, by the chase, to support existence in a state of nature, and which, though rendered dormant by civilisation, had not been utterly eradicated.

This theory is at least more consistent and intelligible than the “love of nature and scenery,” sentimentally propounded by the author quoted above.

[105] The vulnerability of the elephant in this region of the head was known to the ancients, and PLINY, describing a combat of elephants in the amphitheatre at Rome, says, that one was slain by a single blow, “pilum sub oculo adactum, in vitalia capitis venerat.” (Lib. viii. c. 7.) Notwithstanding the comparative facility of access to the brain afforded at this spot, an ordinary leaden bullet is not certain to penetrate, and frequently becomes flattened. The hunters, to counteract this, are accustomed to harden the ball, by the introduction of a small portion of type-metal along with the lead.

[106] “The head is so peculiarly formed that the ball either passes over the brain, or lodges in the immensely solid bones and cartilages that contain the roots of the tusks.... The brain of the African species, he says, rests upon a plate of bone exactly above the roots of the upper grinders and is thus wonderfully protected from a front shot, as it lies so low that the ball passes over it when the elephant raises his head, which he invariably does when in anger, until close to the object of his attack.... I had always held the opinion that the African elephant might be killed with the same facility as that of Ceylon _by a forehead shot_; but I have found by much experience that I was entirely wrong and that although by chance an African elephant may be killed by the front shot, it is the exception to the rule.” (_The Albert Nyanza_, vol. i. p. 277.)

[107] In Mr. GORDON CUMMING’S account of a _Hunter’s Life in South Africa_, there is a narrative of his pursuit of a wounded elephant which he had lamed by lodging a ball in its shoulder-blade. It limped slowly towards a tree, against which it leaned itself in helpless agony, whilst its pursuer seated himself in front of it, in safety, to _boil his coffee_, and observe its sufferings. The story is continued as follows:—“Having admired him for a considerable time, _I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points_; and approaching very near I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and shocked at finding that I was only prolonging the sufferings of the noble beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish the proceeding with all possible despatch, and accordingly opened fire upon him from the left side, aiming at the shoulder. I first fired _six_ shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal. After which I fired _six_ shots at the same part with the Dutch six-pounder. _Large tears now trickled from his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side, he expired._” (Vol. ii. p. 10.)

In another place, after detailing the manner in which he assailed a poor animal, he says: “I was loading and firing as fast as could be, sometimes at the head, sometimes behind the shoulder, until my elephant’s fore-quarter was a mass of gore; notwithstanding which he continued to hold on, leaving the grass and branches of the forest scarlet in his wake.... Having fired _thirty-five rounds_ with my two-grooved rifle, I opened upon him with the Dutch six-pounder, and when forty bullets had perforated his hide, he began for the first time to evince signs of a dilapidated constitution.” The disgusting description is closed thus: “Throughout the charge he repeatedly cooled his person with large quantities of water, which he ejected from his trunk over his sides and back, and just as the pangs of death came over him, he stood trembling violently beside a thorn tree, and kept pouring water into his bloody mouth until he died, when he pitched heavily forward with the whole weight of his fore-quarters resting on the points of his tusks. The strain was fair, and the tusks did not yield; but the portion of his head in which the tusks were embedded, extending a long way above the eye, yielded and burst with a muffled crash.” (_Ib._ vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.)

[108] _The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_; by Sir S. BAKER, pp. 8, 9. “Next to a rogue in ferocity, and even more persevering in the pursuit of her victim, is a female elephant.” But he appends the significant qualification, “_when her young one has been killed_.” (_Ibid._ p. 13.)

[109] _The Rifle and the Hound_, p. 13.

[110] _Menageries_ _etc._ “The Elephant,” ch. i. p. 21.

[111] _System of Phrenology_, by GEO. COMBE, vol. i. p. 256.

[112] Private letter from Capt. PHILIP PAYNE GALLWEY.

[113] Some years ago an elephant which had been wounded by a native, near Hambangtotte, pursued the man into the town, followed him along the street, trampled him to death in the bazaar before a crowd of terrified spectators, and succeeded in making good its retreat to the jungle.

[114] SHAW, in his _Zoology_, asserts that an elephant can run as swiftly as a horse can gallop. London, 1800-6, vol. i. p. 216.

[115] The device of taking them by means of pitfalls still prevails in India; but in addition to the difficulty of providing against that caution with which the elephant is supposed to reconnoitre suspicious ground, it has the further disadvantage of exposing him to injury from bruises and dislocations in his fall. Still it was the mode of capture employed by the Singhalese, and so late as 1750 WOLF relates that the native chiefs of the Wanny, when capturing elephants for the Dutch, made “pits some fathoms deep in those places whither the elephant is wont to go in search of food, across which were laid poles covered with branches and baited with the food of which he is fondest, making towards which he finds himself taken unawares. Thereafter being subdued by fright and exhaustion, he was assisted to raise himself to the surface by means of hurdles and earth, which he placed underfoot as they were thrown down to him, till he was enabled to step out on solid ground, when the noosers and decoys were in readiness to tie him up to the nearest tree.” (See WOLF’S _Life and Adventures_, p. 152.) Shakspeare appears to have been acquainted with the plan of taking elephants in pitfalls: Decius, encouraging the conspirators, reminds them of Cæsar’s taste for anecdotes of animals, by which he would undertake to lure him to his fate:

“For he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betrayed with trees,
And bears with glasses: _elephants with holes_.”

JULIUS CÆSAR, Act ii. Scene I.

[116] KNOX’S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, A. D. 1681, part i. ch. vi. p. 21.

[117] Previous to the death of the female elephant in the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent’s Park, in 1851, Mr. MITCHELL, the Secretary, caused measurements to be accurately made, and found the statement of the Singhalese hunters to be strictly correct, the height at the shoulders being precisely twice the circumference of the fore foot. In an African elephant killed by Sir S. Baker, this proportion did not hold good, as the circumference of the fore foot was 4 feet 11-1/4 inches, and the height at the shoulder 10 feet 6-1/2 inches. (BAKER, _The Albert Nyanza_, vol. ii. p. 10.)

[118] Major SKINNER, the Chief Officer at the head of the Commission of Roads, in Ceylon, in writing to me, mentions an anecdote illustrative of the daring of the Panickeas. “I once saw,” he says, “a very beautiful example of the confidence with which these fellows, from their knowledge of the elephants, meet their worst defiance. It was in Neuera-Kalawa; I was bivouacking on the bank of a river, and had been kept out so late that I did not get to my tent until between 9 and 10 at night. On our return towards it we passed several single elephants making their way to the nearest water, but at length we came upon a large herd that had taken possession of the only road by which we could pass, and which no intimidation would induce to move off. I had some Panickeas with me; they knew the herd, and counselled extreme caution. After trying every device we could think of for a length of time, a little old Moorman of the party came to me and requested we should all retire to a distance. He then took a couple of chules (flambeaux of dried wood, or coco-nut leaves), one in each hand, and waving them above his head till they flamed out fiercely, he advanced at a deliberate pace to within a few yards of the elephant who was acting as leader of the party, and who was growling and trumpeting in his rage, and flourished the flaming torches in his face. The effect was instantaneous; the whole herd dashed away in a panic, bellowing, screaming, and crushing through the underwood, whilst we availed ourselves of the open path to make our way to our tents.”

[119] In the _Philosophical Transactions_ for 1701, there is “An Account of the taking of Elephants in Ceylon, by Mr. STRACHAN, a Physician who lived seventeen years there,” in which the author describes the manner in which they were shipped by the Dutch, at Matura, Galle, and Negombo. A piece of strong sail-cloth having been wrapped round the elephant’s chest and stomach he was forced into the sea between two tame ones, and there made fast to a boat. The tame ones then returned to land, and he swam after the boat to the ship, where tackle was reeved to the sail-cloth, and he was hoisted on board.

“But a better way has been invented lately,” says Mr. Strachan; “a large flat-bottomed vessel is prepared, covered with planks like a floor; so that this floor is almost of a height with the key. Then the sides of the key and the vessel are adorned with green branches, so that the elephant sees no water till he is in the ship.” (_Phil. Trans._ vol. xxiii. No. 227, p. 1051.)

[120] VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_, ch. xv. p. 272.

[121] It is thus spelled by WOLF, in his _Life and Adventures_, p. 144. _Corral_ is at the present day a household word in South America, and especially in La Plata, to designate an _enclosure for cattle_.

[122] See Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT’S _Ceylon_ vol. I. pt. III. ch. xii. p. 415.

[123] Another enormous mass of gneiss is called the Kuruminiagalla, or the Beetle-rock, from its resemblance in shape to the back of that insect, and hence is said to have been derived the name of the town, _Kuruna-galle_ or Korne-galle.

[124] FORBES quotes a Tamil conveyance of land, the purchaser of which is to “possess and enjoy it as long as the sun and the moon, the earth and its vegetables, the mountains and the River Cauvery exist.” (_Oriental Memoirs_, vol. ii. chap. ii.) It will not fail to be observed, that the same figure was employed in Hebrew literature as a type of duration—“They shall fear thee, _so long as the sun and moon endure_; throughout all generations.” (Psalm lxxii. 5, 17.)

[125] _Pentaptera paniculata._

[126] _Entada pursætha._

[127] Fire, the sound of a horn, and the grunting of a boar are the three things which the Greeks, in the middle ages, believed the elephant specially to dislike:

Πῦρ δὲ πτοεῖται καὶ κριὸν κερασφόρον,
Καὶ τῶν μονιῶν τὴν βοὴν τὴν ἀθρόαν.

PHILE, _Expositio de Elephante_, 1. 177.

[128] The other elephant, a fine tusker, which belonged to Dehigam Raté-mahat-meya, continued in extreme excitement throughout all the subsequent operations of the capture, and at last, after attempting to break its way into the corral, shaking the bars with its forehead and tusks, it went off in a state of frenzy into the jungle. A few days after the Aratchy went in search of it with a female decoy, and watching its approach, sprang fairly on the infuriated beast, with a pair of sharp hooks in his hands, which he pressed into tender parts in front of the shoulder, and thus held the elephant firmly till chains were passed over its legs, and it permitted itself to be led quietly away.

[129] In some of the elephant hunts conducted in the southern provinces of Ceylon by the earlier British Governors, as many as 170 and 200 elephants were secured in a single corral, of which a portion only were taken out for the public service, and the rest shot, the motive being to rid the neighbourhood of them, and thus protect the crops from destruction. On the occasion here described, the object being to secure only as many as were required for the Government stud, it was not sought to entrap more than could conveniently be attended to and trained after capture.

[130] This elephant is since dead; she grew infirm and diseased, and died at Colombo in 1848. Her skeleton is now in the Museum of the Natural History Society at Belfast.

[131] The fact of the elephant exhibiting timidity, on having a long rod pointed towards him, was known to the Romans; and PLINY, quoting from the annals of PISO, relates, that in order to inculcate contempt for want of courage in the elephant, they were introduced into the circus during the triumph of METELLUS, after the conquest of the Carthaginians in Sicily, and _driven round the area by workmen holding blunted spears_,—“Ab operariis hastas præpilatas habentibus, per circum totum actos.” (_Nat. Hist._ lib. viii. c. 6.)

[132] “In a corral, to be on a tame elephant, seems to insure perfect immunity from the attacks of the wild ones. I once saw the old chief Mollegodde ride in amongst a herd of wild elephants, on a small elephant; so small that the Adigar’s head was on a level with the back of the wild animals: I felt very nervous, but he rode right in among them, and received not the slightest molestation.”—_Letter from Major_ SKINNER.

[133] The surprising faculty of vultures for discovering carrion, has been a subject of much speculation, as to whether it be dependent on their power of sight or of scent. It is not, however, more mysterious than the unerring certainty and rapidity with which some of the minor animals, and more especially insects, in warm climates congregate around the offal on which they feed. Circumstanced as they are, they must be guided towards their object mainly if not exclusively by the sense of smell; but that which excites astonishment is the small degree of odour which seems to suffice for the purpose; the subtlety and rapidity with which it traverses and impregnates the air; and the keen and quick perception with which it is taken up by the organs of those creatures. The instance of the scavenger beetles has been already alluded to; the promptitude with which they discern the existence of matter suited to their purposes, and the speed with which they hurry to it from all directions; often from distances as extraordinary, proportionably, as those traversed by the eye of the vulture. In the instance of the dying elephant referred to above, life was barely extinct when the flies, of which not one was visible but a moment before, arrived in clouds and blackened the body by their multitude; scarcely an instant was allowed to elapse for the commencement of decomposition; no odour of putrefaction could be discerned by us who stood close by; yet some peculiar smell of mortality, simultaneously with parting breath, must have summoned them to the feast. Ants exhibit an instinct equally surprising. I have sometimes covered up a particle of refined sugar with paper on the centre of a polished table; and counted the number of minutes which would elapse before it was fastened on by the small black ants of Ceylon, and a line formed to lower it safely to the floor. Here was a substance which, to our apprehension at least, is altogether inodorous, and yet the quick sense of smell must have been the only conductor of the ants. It has been observed of those fishes which travel overland on the evaporation of the ponds in which they live, that they invariably march in the direction of the nearest water, and even when captured, and placed on the floor of a room, their efforts to escape are always made towards the same point. Is the sense of smell sufficient to account for this display of instinct in them? or is it aided by special organs in the case of the others? Dr. MCGEE, formerly of the ROYAL NAVY, writing to me on the subject of the instant appearance of flies in the vicinity of dead bodies, says: “In warm climates they do not wait for death to invite them to the banquet. In Jamaica I have again and again seen them settle on a patient, and hardly to be driven away by the nurse, the patient himself saying, ‘Here are these flies coming to eat me ere I am dead.’ At times they have enabled the doctor, when otherwise he would have been in doubt as to his prognosis, to determine whether the strange apyretic interval occasionally present in the last stage of yellow fever was the fatal lull or the lull of recovery; and ‘What say the flies?’ has been the settling question. Among many, many cases during a long period I have seen but one recovery after the assembling of the flies. I consider the foregoing as a confirmation of smell being the guide even to the attendants, a cadaverous smell has been perceived to arise from the body of a patient twenty-four hours before death.”

[134] This is precisely the action ascribed by ARISTOTLE to the elephant, when levelling palm trees. _De Anim. Hist._ 1. ix. c. 2.

[135] ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Eléphants_, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2. It is an interesting fact, noticed by ARMANDI, that the elephants figured on the coins of Alexander and the Seleucidæ invariably exhibit the characteristics of the Indian type, whilst those on Roman medals can at once be pronounced African, from the peculiarities of the convex forehead and expansive ears.—_Ibid._ liv. i. cap. i. p. 3.

ARMANDI has, with infinite industry, collected from original sources a mass of curious information relative to the employment of elephants in ancient warfare, which he has published under the title of _Histoire Militaire des Eléphants depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à l’introduction des armes à feu_. Paris, 1843.

[136] ÆLIAN, lib. ii. cap. ii.

[137] 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.

[138] This is merely a reiteration of the statement of ÆLIAN, who ascribes to the elephants of Taprobane a vast superiority in size, strength, and intelligence, above those of continental India: Καὶ ὁι δέ γε νησιῶται ἐλέφαντες τῶν ἠπειρωτῶν ἀλκιμωτεροί τε τὴν ῥώμην καὶ μείζους ἰδεῖν εἰσὶ, καὶ θυμοσοφώτεροι δὲ πάντα πάντη κρίνοιντο ἄν.—ÆLIAN, _De Nat. Anim._ lib. xvi. cap. xviii.

ÆLIAN also, in the same chapter, states the fact of the shipment of elephants in large boats from Ceylon to the opposite continent of India, for sale to the king of Kalinga; so that the export from Manaar, described in a former passage, has been going on apparently without interruption since the time of the Romans.

[139] The expression of TAVERNIER is to the effect, that as compared with all others, the elephants of Ceylon are “plus courageux _à la guerre_.” The rest of the passage is a curiosity:—

“Il faut remarquer ici une chose qu’on aura peut-être de la peine à croire mais qui est toutefois très-véritable: c’est que lorsque quelque roi ou quelque seigneur a quelqu’un de ces éléphants de Ceylan, et qu’on en amène quelque autre des lieux où les marchands vont les prendre, comme d’Achen, de Siam, d’Arakan, de Pégu, du royaume de Boutan, d’Assam, des terres de Cochin et de la côte du Mélinde, dès que les éléphants en voient un de Ceylan, par un instinct de nature, ils lui font la révérence, portant le bout de leur trompe à la terre et la relevant. Il est vrai que les éléphants que les grands seigneurs entretiennent, quand on les amène devant eux, pour voir s’ils sont en bon point, font trois fois une espèce de révérence avec leur trompe, _ce que j’ai vu souvent_; mais ils sont stylés à cela, et leurs maîtres le leur enseignent de bonne heure.”—_Les Six Voyages de_ J. B. TAVERNIER, lib. iii. ch. 20.

[140] _Ramayana_, sec. vi.; CAREY and MARSHMAN, i. 105; FAUCHE, i. t. p. 66.

[141] The only mention of the elephant in Sacred History is in the account given in _Maccabees_ of the invasion of Egypt by Antiochus, who entered it 170 B.C., “with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy.” (1 Macc. i. 17.) Frequent allusions to the use of elephants in war occur in both books: and in chap. vi. 34, it is stated that “to provoke the elephants to fight they show them the blood of grapes and of mulberries.” The term showed, ἔδειξαν, might be thought to imply that the animals were enraged by the sight of the wine and its colour, but in the Third Book of Maccabees, in the Greek Septuagint, various other passages show that wine, on such occasions, was administered to the elephants to render them furious. (Macc. v. 2, 10, 45.) PHILE mentions the same fact, _De Elephante_, i. 145.

There is a very curious account of the mode in which the Arab conquerors of Scinde, in the 9th and 10th centuries, equipped the elephant for war; which being written with all the particularity of an eye-witness, bears the impress of truth and accuracy. MASSOUDI, who was born in Bagdad at the close of the 9th century, travelled in India in the year A.D. 913, and visited the Gulf of Cambay, the coast of Malabar, and the island of Ceylon:—from a larger account of his journeys he compiled a summary under the title of “_Moroudj al-dzeheb_” or the “_Golden Meadows_,” the MS. of which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. M. REINAUD, in describing this manuscript, says, on its authority, “The Prince of Mensura, whose dominions lay south of the Indus, maintained eighty elephants trained for war, each of which bore in his trunk a bent cymeter (carthel), with which he was taught to cut and thrust at all confronting him. The trunk itself was effectually protected by a coat of mail, and the rest of the body enveloped in a covering composed jointly of iron and horn. Other elephants were employed in drawing chariots, carrying baggage, and grinding forage, and the performance of all bespoke the utmost intelligence and docility.”—REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l’Inde, antérieurement au milieu du XI^e siècle, d’après les écrivains arabes, persans et chinois_. Paris, M.D.CCC.XLIX. p. 215. See SPRENGER’S English translation of Massoudi, vol. i. p. 383.

[142] BRODERIP, _Zoological Recreations_, p. 226.

[143] The iron goad with which the keeper directs the movements of the elephants, called a _hendoo_ in Ceylon and _hawkus_ in Bengal, appears to have retained the present shape from the remotest antiquity. It is figured in the medals of Caracalla in the identical form in which it is in use at the present day in India.

The Greeks called it ἅρπη, and the Romans _cuspis_.

[144] JORDANUS DE SEVERAC, in his _Mirabilia Descripta_, written about the year 1330, thus describes the mode then in use for taming captured elephants in Cambodia:—“And so the wild elephant remaineth caught between the two gates. Then cometh a man _clothed in black or red, with his face covered_, who cruelly thrashes him from above, and crieth out cruelly against him as against a ‘thief!’ and this goeth on for five or six days; without his getting anything to eat or drink. Then cometh another man with _his face bare and clad in another colour_, who feigneth to smite the first man, and to drive and thrust him away. Then he cometh to the elephant and talketh to him, and with a long spear he scratcheth him, and he kisses him and gives him food. And this goes on for ten or fifteen days, and so by degrees he ventureth down beside him and bindeth him to another elephant. And then after about twenty days he may be taken out to be taught and broken in.” (Chap. v.)

[145] This was the largest elephant that had been tamed in Ceylon; he measured upwards of nine feet at the shoulders, and belonged to the caste so highly prized for the temples. He was gentle after his first capture, but his removal from the corral to the stables, though only a distance of six miles, was a matter of the extremest difficulty: his extraordinary strength rendering him more than a match for the attendant decoys. He on one occasion escaped, but was recaptured in the forest; and he afterwards became so docile as to perform a variety of tricks. He was at length ordered to be removed to Colombo; but such was his terror on approaching the fort, that on coaxing him to enter the gate, he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to, and died on the spot.

[146] The natives of Ceylon profess that the high-caste elephants, such as are allotted to the temples, are of all others the most difficult to tame, and M. BLES, the Dutch correspondent of BUFFON, mentions a caste of elephants which he had heard of, as being peculiar to the Kandyan kingdom, that were not higher than a heifer (génisse), covered with hair, and insusceptible of being tamed. (BUFFON, _Supp._ vol. vi. p. 29.) Bishop HEBER, in the account of his journey from Bareilly towards the Himalayas, describes the Raja Gourman Sing, “mounted on a little female elephant, hardly bigger than a Durham ox, and almost as shaggy as a poodle.” (_Journ._ ch. xvii.) It will be remembered that the mammoth discovered in 1803 embedded in icy soil in Siberia, was covered with a coat of long hair, with a sort of wool at the roots. Hence there arose the question whether that northern region had been formerly inhabited by a race of elephants, so fortified by nature against cold; or whether the individual discovered had been borne thither by currents from some more temperate latitudes. To the latter theory the presence of hair seemed a fatal objection; but so far as my own observation goes, I believe the elephants are more or less provided with hair. In some it is more developed than in others, and it is particularly observable in the young, which when captured are frequently covered with a woolly fleece, especially about the head and shoulders. In the older individuals in Ceylon, this is less apparent; and in captivity the hair appears to be altogether removed by the custom of the mahouts to rub their skin daily with oil and a rough lump of burned clay. See a paper on the subject, _Asiat. Journ._ N. S. vol. xiv. p. 182, by Mr. G. FAIRHOLME. Fossil remains of elephants of extremely small dimensions have, it is said, been discovered in the island of Malta.

[147]

Διπλῆς δέ φασιν εὐπορῆσαι καρδίας·
Καὶ τῇ μὲν εἶναι θυμικὸν τὸ θηρίον
Εἰς ἀκρατῆ κίνησιν ἠρεθισμένον,
Τῇ δὲ προσηνὲς καὶ θρασύτητος ξένον.
Καὶ πῇ μὲν αὐτῶν ἀκροᾶσθαι τῶν λόγων
Οὓς ἄν τις Ἰνδὸς εὖ τιθασεύων λέγοι,
Πῇ δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς τοὺς νομεῖς ἐπιτρὲχειν
Εἰς τὰς παλαιὰς ἐκτραπὲν κακουργίας.

PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph._ l. 126, &c.

[148] Captain YULE, in his _Narrative of an Embassy to Ava in 1855_, records an illustration of this tendency of the elephant to sudden death; one newly captured, the process of taming which was exhibited to the British Envoy, “made vigorous resistance to the placing of a collar on its neck, and the people were proceeding to tighten it, when the elephant, which had lain down as if quite exhausted, reared suddenly on the hind quarters, and fell on its side—_dead!_” (P. 104.)

Mr. STRACHAN noticed the same liability of the elephants to sudden death from very slight causes; “if they fall,” he says, “at any time, though on plain ground, they either die immediately, or languish till they die; their great weight occasioning them so much hurt by the fall.” (_Phil. Trans._ A. D. 1701, vol. xxiii. p. 1052.)

[149] A correspondent informs me that on the Malabar coast of India, the elephant, when employed in dragging stones, moves them by means of a rope, which he either draws with his forehead, or manages by seizing it in his teeth.

[150] “Here the trees were large and handsome, but not strong enough to resist the inconceivable strength of the mighty monarch of these forests; almost every tree had half its branches broken short by them, and at every hundred yards I came upon entire trees, and these, _the largest in the forest_, uprooted clean out of the ground, and _broken short across their stems_.” (_A Hunter’s Life in South Africa._ By R. GORDON CUMMING, vol.ii. p.305.) “Spreading out from one another, they smash and destroy all the finest trees in the forest which happen to be in their course.... I have rode through forests where the trees thus broken lay so thick across one another, that it was almost impossible to ride through the districts.” (_Ibid._ p.310.)

Mr. Gordon Cumming does not name the trees which he saw thus “uprooted” and “broken across,” nor has he given any idea of their size and weight; but Major DENHAM, who observed like traces of the elephant in Africa, saw only small trees overthrown by them; and Mr. PRINGLE, who had an opportunity of observing similar practices of the animals in the neutral territory of the Eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, describes their ravages as being confined to the mimosas, “immense numbers of which had been torn out of the ground, and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease on the soft and juicy roots, which form a favourite part of their food. Many of the _larger mimosas had resisted all their efforts; and indeed it is only after heavy rain, when the soil is soft and loose, that they ever successfully attempt this operation_.” (PRINGLE’S _Sketches of South Africa_.) Sir S. BAKER, whose observation confirms my own, as to the limited dimensions of the trees overthrown by elephants in Ceylon, says that in the vicinity of the White Nile, where the principal food of the elephant is the mimosa, he saw trees uprooted by them, which measured 30 feet high and 4 feet 6 inches in diameter. But he is “convinced that no single elephant could have overturned them; and the natives assured him that they mutually assist one another, and that several engage together in the work of overthrowing a large tree; the powerful tushes of some being applied as crowbars in the roots while others pull at the branches their trunks.” (_The Albert Nyanz_ vol. i. p. 276.)

[151] _Menageries_, _etc._ “The Elephant,” vol. ii. p. 23.

[152] _Menageries_, _etc._ ch. vi. p. 138.

[153] _Menageries_, _etc._ “The Elephant,” vol. i. p. 19.

[154] The principal sound by which the mahouts in Ceylon direct the motions of the elephants is a repetition, with various modulations, of the words _ur-re! ur-re!_ This is one of those interjections in which the sound is so expressive of the sense that persons in charge of animals of almost every description throughout the world appear to have adopted it with a concurrence that is very curious. The drivers of camels in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage them to speed by shouting _ar-ré! ar-ré!_ The Arabs in Algeria cry _eirich!_ to their mules. The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where mules are still driven with cries of _arré_ (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of “arrieros”). In France the sportsman excites the hound by shouts of _hare! hare!_ and the waggoner there turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word _hurhaut!_ In the North, “_Hurs_ was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed:” and Sir FRANCIS HEAD, in his _Bubbles from the Brunnens_, describes the Schwin-General shouting “_ariff_” to his pigs...“_ariff!_ vociferated the old man, striding after one of his rebellious subjects; _ariff!_ re-echoed his boy striding after another.” (P.94.)

To the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their pigs with shouts of _hurrish!_ a sound closely resembling that used by the mahouts in Ceylon.

[155] _On the Difference between the Human Membrana tympani and that of the Elephant._ By Sir EVERARD HOME, Bart., _Philos. Trans._ 1823. Paper by Prof. HARRISON, _Proc. Royal Irish Academy_, vol. iii. p. 386.

[156] I have already noticed the striking effect produced on the captive elephants in the corral, by the harmonious notes of an ivory flute; and on looking to the graphic description which is given by ÆLIAN of the exploits which he witnessed as performed by the elephants exhibited at Rome, it is remarkable how very large a share of their training appears to have been ascribed to the employment of music.

PHILE, in the account which he has given of the elephant’s fondness for music, would almost seem to have versified the prose narrative of ÆLIAN, as he describes its excitement at the more animated portions, its step being regulated to the time and movements of the harmony: the whole “_surprising in a creature whose limbs are without joints!_”

Καινόν τι ποιῶν ἐξ ἀνάρθρων ὀργάνων.

PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph._ l. 216.

For an account of the training and performances of the elephants at Rome, as narrated by ÆLIAN, see the appendix to this chapter.

[157] _The Angler in the Lake District_, p. 23. A similar story is told in the _Memoir of Bishop Wilson_, of an elephant which when suffering with ophthalmia had experienced the relief derived from a solution of nitrate of silver, and voluntarily offered its eye for a re-application of the remedy, on a second visit of the surgeon.

[158] A shocking account of the death of this poor animal is given in HONE’S _Every-Day Book_, March 1830, p. 337.

[159] ÆLIAN, lib. xiii. c. 7.

[160] The elephant which was dissected by Dr. HARRISON of Dublin, in 1847, died of a febrile attack, after four or five days’ illness, which, as Dr. H. tells me in a private letter, was “very like scarlatina, at that time a prevailing disease: its skin in some places became almost scarlet.”

[161] See a paper, entitled “_Recollections of Ceylon_,” in _Fraser’s Magazine_ for December 1860.

[162] _Annales du Muséum_, F. viii. 1805. p. 94, and _Ossemens Fossiles_, quoted by OWEN, in the article on “Teeth,” in TODD’S _Cyclop. of Anatomy_, _etc._ vol. iv. p. 929.

[163] An ordinary-sized elephant engrosses the undivided attention of _three_ men. One, as his mahout or superintendent, and two as leaf-cutters, who bring him branches and grass for his daily supplies. An animal of larger growth would probably require a third leaf-cutter. The daily consumption is two cwt. of green food with about half a bushel of grain. When in the vicinity of towns and villages, the attendants have no difficulty in procuring an abundant supply of the branches of the trees to which elephants are partial; and in journeys through the forests and unopened country, the leaf-cutters are sufficiently expert in the knowledge of those particular plants with which the elephant is satisfied. Those that would be likely to disagree with him he unerringly rejects. His favourites are the palms, especially the cluster of rich, unopened leaves, known as the “cabbage,” of the coco-nut and areca; and he delights to tear open the young trunks of the palmyra and jaggery (_Caryota urens_) in search of the farinaceous matter contained in the spongy pith. Next to these come the varieties of fig-trees, particularly the sacred _Bo_ (_F. religiosa_) which is found near every temple, and the _na gaha_ (_Messua ferrea_), with thick dark leaves and a scarlet flower. The leaves of the jak-tree and bread-fruit (_Artocarpus integrifolia_, and _A. incisa_), the wood apple (_Ægle Marmelos_), Palu (_Mimusops Indica_), and a number of others well known to their attendants, are all consumed in turn. The stems of the plaintain, the stalks of the sugar-cane, and the feathery tops of the bamboos, are irresistible luxuries. Pine-apples, water-melons, and fruits of every description, are voraciously devoured, and a coconut when found is first rolled under foot to detach it from the husk and fibre, and then raised in his trunk and crushed almost without an effort, by his ponderous jaws.

The grasses are not found in sufficient quantity to be an item of daily fodder; the Mauritius or the Guinea grass is seized with avidity; lemon grass is rejected from its overpowering perfume, but rice in the straw, and every description of grain, whether growing or dry; gram (_Cicer arietinum_), Indian corn, and millet, are his natural food. Of such of these as can be found, it is the duty of the leaf-cutters, when in the jungle and on march, to provide a daily supply.

[164] ARISTOTELES _de Anim._ 1. viii. c. 9.

[165] _Ménag. de Mus. Nat._ p. 107.

[166] _Ostéographie_, “Eléph.” p. 74.

[167] FLEURENS, _De la Longévité Humaine_, pp. 82, 89.

[168] This remark regarding the elephant of Ceylon does not appear to extend to that of Africa, as I observe that BEAVER, in his _African Memoranda_, says that “the skeletons of old ones that have died in the woods are frequently found.” (_African Memoranda relative to an attempt to establish British Settlements at the Island of Bulama._ Lond. 1815, p. 353.)

[169] A corral was organised near Putlam in 1846, by Mr. Morris, the chief officer of the district. It was constructed across one of the paths to which the elephants resort in their frequent marches, and during the course of the proceedings two of the captured elephants died. Their carcases were left of course within the enclosure, which was abandoned as soon as the capture was complete. The wild elephants resumed their path through it, and a few days afterwards the headman reported to Mr. Morris that the bodies had been removed and carried outside the corral to a spot to which nothing but the elephants could have borne them.

[170] _Expositio de Eleph._ l. 243.

[171] The selection by animals of a _place to die_, is not confined to the elephant. DARWIN says, that in South America “the guanacos (llamas) appear to have favourite spots for lying down to die; on the banks of the Santa Cruz river, in certain circumscribed spaces which were generally bushy and all near the water, the ground was actually white with their bones: on one such spot I counted between ten and twenty heads.”—_Nat. Voy._ ch. viii. The same has been remarked in the Rio Gallegos; and at St. Jago in the Cape de Verde Islands, DARWIN saw a retired corner similarly covered with the bones of the goat, as if it were “the burial-ground of all the goats in the island.”

[172] _Arabian Nights’ Entertainment_, LANE’S edition, vol. iii. p. 77.

[173] See a disquisition on the origin of the story of Sinbad, by M. REINAUD, in the introduction prefixed to his translation of the _Arabian Geography of Aboulfeda_, vol. i. p. lxxvi.

INDEX.

ADAM’S PEAK, ascent of by elephants, _page_ 41

——, encounter with wild elephants near, 77

Adventures with elephants, 71

ÆLIAN, account of the export of elephants from Ceylon, 5 _n._

—— his fallacy as to the elephant shedding his tusks, 7 _n._

—— alleged antipathy of the elephant and rhinoceros, 9, 15

—— his account of training, 151

—— error as to the elephant being without joints, 34, 35 _n._

—— says elephants were trained to kill by their knees, 16 _n._

—— on the supposed superiority of the Ceylon to the Indian elephant,
152 _n._

—— elephant, love of music, 168 _n._

—— elephants performing at Rome, 168 _n._, 183

Aetagalla Rock, legend of, 107

Affection for their young, 47

African elephant teeth different from Indian, vii.

—— ribs and vertebræ, viii. 20

—— both sexes have tusks, 6

—— ivory preferred to Ceylon in Europe, 6 _n._

—— conjecture respecting tusks, 7

—— great size of tusks; 300 lbs. and upwards, 7, 8

African elephant is not vulnerable in the forehead, as the Ceylon
elephant is, _page_ 81

Age of elephants, 123, 177

—— estimated duration of life in, 177

Airavanta, Sanscrit, origin of the word elephant, 4 _n._

Alce. _See_ Elk, 33

_Alexandri Epistola ad Aristolelem_, 11

Alexander the Great, his Indian expedition, 150

—— coins of, 151 _n._

_Alisaunder_, English romance of, 12 _n._

Allia. _See_ Hora allia, 82. _See_ Rogue

Alligator River, elephant hunt at, 106

Anarajapoora, instinct exhibited by elephants at, 65

Anatomy of the elephant imperfectly known, 56

—— account of by Molyneux, A.D. 1696, 56 _n._

ANSTED, Prof., on the height of elephants, 31 _n._

Antipater brought the first Indian elephant to Greece, 150

Antipathy of elephants to other animals, 12, 15

—— its improbability, 15

Ants, superior to the elephant in sagacity, 68

—— their marvellous power of discovering sugar, 139 _n._

_Arabian Nights_, story of the burial place of dead elephants, 182

ἅρπη. _See_ Hendoo, 156 _n._

ARISTOTLE, on the trunk of the elephant, 28 _n._

—— on the fallacy of the elephant having no joints, 33

—— on the double stomach of the elephant, 57 _n._

—— on its mode of levelling trees, 140 _n._

ARMANDI, error as to the height of Ceylon elephant, 31 _n._

—— on the double stomach of, 67 _n._

—— on elephants in war, 151

_Ar-ré_, sound to guide elephants, 167 _n._

—— its variations in various countries, ib.

_Arundel MSS._, errors as to the elephant, 36

Assam, elephant of, x.

Avisavelle, elephant corral at, 43

BADULLA, fight between two elephants at, 16

—— adventures with elephants near, 71, 74

BAKER, Sir SAMUEL, on the weight of African ivory, 8 _n._

—— his stories of elephant shooting, 77 _n._

—— on the difference between the Ceylon and African species, 20 _n._

—— on power to uproot trees, 162 _n._

—— on the size of the elephant’s foot in Africa, 98 _n._

BARBEZIEUX, RICHARD DE, error as to joints of elephant, 37

Bari, size of African ivory at, 8 _n._

Bathing elephants, story of, 51, 55 _n._

BENARY, his theory of the derivation of the word elephant, 4 _n._

Bengal, elephants of, viii.

—— method of poisoning them, 6

—— mode of capturing them, 104

Bentinck, Baron, communication from, viii. ix.

BERNIER, as to the supposed superiority of the Ceylon elephant to that
of India, 152

“_Bestiaries_” of the Middle Ages, in error as to the joints
of the elephant,36

Burmah, method of capturing elephants in, 97

Bison, its instinct as to harvest time, 64

BLAIR, Dr., on the anatomy of the elephant, 56 _n._

BLES, M., affection of elephants for their young, 47. _See_ Buffon

—— on training elephants, 159 _n._

Bo-trees, sacred; eaten by elephants, 111.

BOCHART, derivation of the word _elephant_, 4 _n._

BONAPARTE, Prince LUCIEN, his account of the Sumatran elephant, viii.

Breeding in captivity, fallacy as to, 176

BRODERIP, on the mode of training, 155

—— on the size of tusks in elephants, 8 _n._

—— on the stomach of, 56

BROOKE, Sir VICTOR, Bart., great elephant shot by, 9 _n._

—— immense tusk, 16

BROWNE, Sir THOMAS, _Vulgar Errors_, exposes the delusion as to there
being no joints in the elephant, 32, 38

BUCHANAN, on rogue elephants, 49 _n._

Buffalo, double stomach of, 63

BUFFON. _See_ BLES

—— on the double stomach of the elephant, 57 _n._

—— on training, 159 _n._

Burial place of the elephants, as told in the story of _Sinbad
of the Sea_, 181

Burying their dead, alleged habit of elephants, 180

CÆSAR, his story of the _alce_, 33

Cambodia, method of training elephants in, 157

Camel, alleged antipathy of the elephant to, 13

—— cellular stomach, 60

CAMPER, on the double stomach of the elephant, 58

Captivity, conduct of elephants when first taken, 150

Carthaginians employed elephants in war, 151

Caution of elephants as to pit-falls alleged, but doubtful, 67

Ceylon, geological formation of the island, vii.

—— export of elephants to India, viii. 5

—— profuse number of elephants in, 5

—— cause of declining numbers, 6

Charlemagne, elephant sent to by Haroun Alraschid, 35

Chena cultivation, 64

China, Ceylon ivory preferred for carving, 62

Chittagong, elephant of, x.

Chuny, the tame elephant killed at Exeter Change, its cruel death, 169

Climbing, ability of the elephant in, 41

Cochin China, elephant of, xi.

COCKAYNE. See _Alexandri Epistola, etc._, 11

Coco-nut, how eaten by an elephant, 64

COLERIDGE, on the sagacity of the elephant, 68

Colombo frequented by elephants in 1705 A. D., 5

COMBE, on the brain of the elephant, 86

Cooroowe. _See_ Noosers, 122, 155

Coroners’ inquests show few deaths by elephants, 10

Corral or Kraal, operations of, 95

—— in Bengal, how constructed. _See_ Keddah, 104

—— dimensions, 113

—— form of, 112

—— its strength, 114

—— the drive of the elephants, 115

—— the rush and return, 116

—— singular night scene, 117

—— the capture made, 118

—— noosed and secured, 121

—— distress of the captives, and their struggles, 125, 135

—— terror of the elephants for white rods, 128

—— noticed by Pliny, 128, _n._

—— conduct of the young ones, 137

—— extraordinary scene, 140

—— interesting demeanour of the captives, 140

—— a second herd driven in and taken, 143

—— leading out the captives, 147

CORSE, his account of the Indian elephant, 47

COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, his account of the export of elephants
from Ceylon, 5 _n._

Courage in open ground, 86, 87

Cripps, Mr., description of a strange sound made by elephants, 29

—— story of an elephant feigning death, 70

—— on the taming and training of elephants, 158

—— on their attachment to attendants, 166

Cripps, Mr., on elephants breeding in captivity, 177

Cruelties in elephant shooting, 77 _n._

CTESIAS, fallacy that the elephant has no joints, 33

CUMMING, Mr. GORDON, his cruel experiments on the vital endurance
of the elephant, 81 _n._

—— questionable stories of trees uprooted by elephants, 162 _n._

Curiosity, spirit of, strong in the elephant, 67

—— story of Colonel Hardy, 67

Cuspis. _See_ Hendoo, 156 _n._

Cuttack, elephant of, x.

—— method of poisoning elephants in, 6

CUVIER, on the comparative sagacity of the elephant, 68

—— on the tusks of elephants, 173

—— on duration of life in, 177

_DAH! DAH!_ word hateful to wild elephant, 100

_Dakra_, a poison for elephants in Bengal, 6 _n._

DARWIN, on the burial place of llamas and goats, 101 _n._

DAVY, Dr., on endurance of pain in the elephant, 168

—— on the spirit of curiosity in the elephant, 67

Dawson, Capt., an elephant shot by, dies standing, 39

DE BLAINVILLE, on the duration of life in the elephant, 177

DE BRY, story of a horse killed by a trained elephant, 13

Dead elephant, body rarely found, 179

Deafness occasional in elephants, 30

Death feigned by an elephant, 70

Decoy elephants, their conduct, 119, 123, 134

_Défenses_. _See_ Tusks, 9

Dekkan, elephant of the, xi.

De Lima, General, immense tusks got by, in Africa, 8 _n._

DENHAM, Major, on the height of an African elephant, 31

——, Major, power of elephant to overthrow trees, 162 _n._

Descending acclivities, mode of, 44

Dentine, 173. _See_ Ivory

DICUIL, description of the elephant of Charlemagne, 35