HABITS AND WAYS OF ELEPHANTS.
The most favorable locality to observe wild elephants in India is in
Mysore, where the western ghats, the Billiga-rungun hills, and the
Goondulpet and Kákankoté forests, afford fine opportunities to the
naturalist and sportsman to observe the largest of living land animals
in the haunts of its choice. It is here that the elephant-catcher of the
British Government, Mr. George P. Sanderson, makes his headquarters, and
has obtained such signal success for many years.
Wild Asiatic elephants usually travel in herds of from thirty to fifty,
though sometimes the number is swelled to one hundred and over; but small
herds are the rule, this division allowing them to obtain a much larger
supply of food. The necessity of this can be better appreciated when it
is known that a band of one hundred elephants require, or will consume,
eighty thousand pounds of fodder in a day.
The favorite food of the wild Asiatic elephant in Ceylon is palms,
especially the cabbage, the young trunks of palmyra and jaggery (_Caryota
urens_). They are also very fond of figs, the sacred Bo-tree (_F.
religiosa_) found near the temples, as well as the Negaha (_Messua
ferrea_). The leaves of the jak-tree are considered a great luxury by the
huge creatures; while the bread-fruit, wood-apple, sugar-cane, palm,
pineapple, watermelon, and the feathery part of the bamboo, are all to
its taste. Among the grasses, the mauritius and Guinea grass are eaten;
and all the grains. Cocoanuts they break by rolling them under foot.
The African elephant affects the succulent mimosa, and larger shoots
and branches than its cousin, its teeth being fitted for a coarser
diet. They are, according to Drummond, particularly fond of the fruit
of the unganu-tree, which seems to intoxicate them; as they stagger
about, performing the most remarkable antics for a clumsy beast; often
trumpeting so loudly that they can be heard for miles, and sometimes
engaging in terrific encounters.
When separated into small herds, the elephants all move in concert,
as if there was a mutual understanding as to the general route to
be taken. Elephants are extremely sure-footed, and will climb quite
steep hills. A paper in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
describes the methods adopted by the elephant in going down-hill. The
writer says, “An elephant descending a bank of too acute an angle to
admit of his walking down it direct (which were he to attempt, his huge
body, soon disarranging the centre of gravity, would certainly topple
over), proceeds thus: his first manœuvre is to kneel down close to the
edge of the declivity, placing his chest to the ground. One fore-leg is
then cautiously passed a short way down the slope; and, if there is no
natural protection to afford a firm footing, he speedily forms one by
stamping into the soil if moist, or picking out a footing if dry. This
point gained, the other fore-leg is brought down in the same way, and
performs the same work, a little in advance of the first, which is thus
at liberty to move lower still. Then the first one of the hind-legs is
carefully drawn over the side, and then the second; and the hind-feet
in turn occupy the resting-places previously used and left by the first
ones. The course, however, in such precipitous ground is not straight
from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the bank, descending
till the animal gains the level below. This an elephant has done at
an angle of forty-five degrees, carrying a howdah, its occupant, his
attendant, and sporting apparatus, and in much less time than it takes to
describe the operation. I have observed that an elephant in descending a
declivity uses his knees on the side next the bank, and his feet on the
lower side only.” Elephants are often described as galloping, leaping,
and gambolling about like a horse. Such movements are impossible; the
only gait being a walk, that can be increased to a very rapid shuffle of
fifteen miles an hour for a short distance. It appears to move the legs
on the same side together, but this is not exactly so. Elephants cannot
leap, and never have all four feet from the ground at the same time.
Sanderson says, “I have seen an elephant go over quite high hurdles,
but never take all four feet from the ground at once. Even the smallest
spring is beyond its power; a small trench seven feet across being quite
impossible by the largest elephant, although its stride may be six feet
and a half long.”
The sense of smell is so delicate that a tame elephant will recognize the
presence of a wild one three miles away, and by its actions inform the
mahout. Selous, the African hunter, watched a herd of elephants cross his
trail from a place of security below them; and the moment the trunk of
the leader crossed the spot where his foot had been, it stopped, waved
its proboscis a few moments, then turned and ran, accompanied by the
entire band. The herds of elephants, when divided, are family parties,
generally all related, and on the march. The mothers with young always
take the lead; the old tuskers following along in the rear, taking the
front, however, in case of alarm. This method of procedure might appear
strange at first; but the mothers probably know how long a tramp the
calves can endure, and so the responsibility is left to them.
All of my young readers who have visited the circus, must have heard the
trumpeting of elephants. This is one of their methods of communication:
in other words, elephants have a language that is expressed in different
ways,—sometimes by the throat, and, again, by the trunk. When an elephant
is pleased, it expresses it by a squeaking noise,—a most ear-grating
sound made in the trunk. It also purrs gently, often so low that the
keeper alone hears it. When fully enraged, and rushing upon an enemy,
its war-cry is a shrill trumpeting that no one can mistake. Rage is
also expressed by a low, hoarse rumbling in the throat. Fear or pain is
manifested by a shrill squeak, and sometimes by a loud, reverberating
roar. The expression of misapprehension or suspicion is entirely
different from that of fear, being shown by rapping the trunk upon the
ground sharply, at the same time emitting a volume of air from the trunk,
that is said to sound like a sheet of tin being rapidly doubled. Desire
or want is expressed by the throat, especially in young elephants; and
any one who watched the famous baby elephant Bridgeport, must have heard
the curious sounds it uttered.
In the open country the elephant seems to have regular trails, or drives,
that are followed season after season with some regularity. During the
dry time, that in India is from January to April, they follow the beds
of streams, and seek the deep forests, there finding protection from the
intense heat; but when the rain commences, in June, they roam into the
open country, grazing upon the new and fresh grass produced by the warm
showers. With the latter also come innumerable flies, that also drive
them out into the low jungles; one, a huge insect as large as a bee, with
a long proboscis, being especially irritating. At this time they frequent
the salt-licks, and have been seen to eat earth impregnated with soda.
This is the elephant’s medicine, certain kinds of earth being eaten for
the same reason that dogs eat grass.
When the dry season comes, and the grass is withered and bitter, the
herds leave the lowlands, remaining in the hills until the next season.
Almost the entire time is spent in grazing; though they are often seen
after a rain warming their great bodies in the sun, or standing upon the
open rocks that form a characteristic of the hills of the Mysore country.
When the fodder is exhausted in a locality, the march is taken up, and
invariably in Indian file; so that it is often difficult to tell whether
ten or one hundred elephants are ahead. Upon reaching a good locality,
they disperse, and remain in the vicinity for two days or so. Their rest
is taken, as a rule, in the middle of the night; particular friends
lying down together, or often a family party. They are early risers, and
by three o’clock in the morning are either feeding, or on the march.
At ten o’clock they will perhaps collect for a rest, then from four in
the afternoon until eleven at night they feed or march. There are, of
course, exceptions to this. In very cool or wet weather they march all
day, and often for various reasons do not lie down for several days at a
time. Elephants sleep like horses, either standing or lying down. The
latter is the natural way, though the process of assuming a reclining
position is a somewhat difficult one. When first captured, they often
do not lie down for weeks. It is stated that an elephant owned by Louis
XIV. did not lie down for the last five years of its life. It wore two
holes in the stone buttress with its tusks, and seemed to support itself
to some extent in this way while it slept. Wild African elephants have
been observed leaning against a tree in the forests. The enormous ears
of the African elephant are used as fans; and when a herd is seen upon
a hot day, these huge members are continually moving, either to create
a current of air, or to blow away the insect pests with which they are
infested. They have also been seen to take a branch in their trunks to
brush away flies, using it as a person would a fan. The hearing of the
elephant is very acute, much more so than in man; experiment having shown
that a female heard her young when the sound was inaudible to a party of
Englishmen between her and the calf.
Sir Everard Home experimented with an elephant by musical sounds, and
came to the conclusion that it did not possess a musical ear, though
it was attracted by certain notes. He says, “I got Mr. Broadwood, as a
matter of curiosity, to send one of his tuners with a piano-forte to
the menageries of wild beasts in Exeter Change, that I might know the
effect of acute and grave sounds upon the ear of a full-grown elephant.
The acute sounds seemed hardly to attract his notice; but as soon as
the grave notes were struck, he became all attention, brought forward
the large external ear, tried to discover where the sounds came from,
remained in the attitude of listening, and after some time made noises by
no means of dissatisfaction.”
The elephant is extremely fond of water; and soon after sunrise the
Asiatic species can be seen sporting in the streams, floundering about,
and spouting water over their huge bodies, piping and trumpeting with
conflicting emotions. They are very susceptible to cold, and when obliged
to enter water at night, or when it is chilly, are careful to lift their
tails and trunks above the surface if possible.
So clumsy an animal would hardly be expected to excel in swimming, yet
probably few land animals can compete with them in this respect. In
1875 Mr. Sanderson sent a herd of seventy-nine from Dacca to Barrackpur
near Calcutta, and during the march they had to cross the Ganges and
several large tributaries. In one place the entire herd swam without
touching bottom for six consecutive hours: then after resting a while
on a sand-bank, they swam three more, or nine in all, with but one
rest. Few land animals could accomplish this without losing some of
their number. But Mr. Sanderson states that he has heard of swims even
more remarkable than this. Notwithstanding their fine swimming powers,
elephants are sometimes drowned by very simple means; and Mr. Sanderson
records such an instance: “We had left the Myanee above its junction with
the Kurnafoolie, and were marching by land; but, owing to the lie of
the country, we had to cross the Kurnafoolie occasionally. It was very
deep, and the elephants had to swim. One morning, whilst crossing where
it was about eighty yards wide and thirty feet deep in a gorge through a
saddle in the hills, a tusker which was secured between two tame ones,
one in advance of, and one behind, him, sank like a stone, probably from
being seized with cramp from the coldness of the water, and dragged the
two females with him. Their mahouts tried in vain to slash the ropes
through: they had barely time to save themselves by swimming. Any thing
more sudden or unexpected I never witnessed. One elephant appeared
again for a brief moment, at least about two feet of her trunk did: she
waved us a last farewell, when all was still save the air-bubbles which
continued to rise for some time from the calm, deep pool. Every one who
witnessed it was shocked. The drivers of the elephants yet to cross
hesitated. We could not believe the unfortunate beasts would not come up
again. The mahouts sat down, and cried like children over the loss of
the faithful beasts they had tended for years. Elephants are such good
swimmers, that I cannot understand how it was that the two tame ones
were unable to gain the shore, which was only twenty yards distant, by
towing the wild one. When they floated, we found that they were in no way
entangled; and it was not owing to snags catching the ropes, nor to any
undercurrent, that they were drawn down. One of the tame ones, Geraldine,
was a great favorite of mine; and she and the other were worth twelve
hundred dollars each. The tusker was worth twenty-four hundred, so the
money lost to the government was considerable.”
No subject relating to elephants is so difficult to determine by a mere
casual examination, as that relating to its size. Statements from natives
can never be relied upon; as in times of excitement a large bull will
appear twenty feet high, and the observers are not at all unwilling
to make affidavit to that effect. Asiatic elephants rarely, if ever,
attain a height of ten feet at the shoulder. The largest in the Madras
commissariat stud to-day measures nine feet ten inches. The next largest
is owned by his Highness the Mahárájah of Mysore, and measures nine feet
two inches, and is forty years old. Females are usually smaller. Two in
the collection at Dacca measure eight feet five inches, and eight feet
three inches respectively; and, to show that this is exceptional, Mr.
Sanderson measured one hundred and forty in 1874, and found that the
largest females measured just eight feet. Mistakes and exaggerations
occur from the fact that elephants are often measured by throwing a tape
over the shoulders, and, when both ends touch the ground, accepting
one-half as the correct height: nine inches may be gained in this way in
measuring an eight-foot animal. Mr. Corse, a former superintendent of
the East India Company’s elephants at Tiperah, a province of Bengal, who
probably saw a greater number of elephants than any European, states that
he never heard of more than one Asiatic elephant that exceeded ten feet.
This was a large tusker, the property of the Vizier of Oude. Accurate
measurements were made, which were as follows:—
FT. IN.
From foot to foot over the shoulder 22 10½
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height 10 6
From the top of the head, when set up 12 2
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail 15 11
[Illustration: PLATE II.
ELEPHANTS MOVING TIMBER.
_Page 34._]
Mr. Corse says, “During the war with Tippoo Sultan, of the fifteen
hundred elephants under the management of Capt. Sandys, not one was ten
feet high, and only a few males nine and a half feet high.” He was very
particular in ascertaining the height of elephants used at Madras and in
the army under Marquis Cornwallis, from the fact that the most remarkable
stories were current at the time concerning large elephants. Madras
elephants were reported from fifteen to twenty feet high. The Nabob of
Dacca was said to have one, fourteen feet in height; and Mr. Corse took a
journey to the locality purposely to measure it. He found, that instead
of twelve feet, as he thought barely possible, the elephant was only
ten. If any of my readers wish to test the accuracy of any statement as
to an elephant’s height, they have only to measure the distance around
its foot twice, which will give nearly the exact height at the shoulder.
This is as deceptive as guessing the height of a silk hat or the length
of a horse’s head. A party of young people were once watching some
elephants, when the question was propounded how many times around the
foot would equal the height. The answers were all over ten, and one was
fifteen. As the circumference of the fore-foot of the average elephant
is about fifty-four inches, this would have given them an animal over
sixty feet high. It has been supposed by some authors, that elephants are
not as tall now as formerly, that they have degenerated in size as the
world grew older; but this is not borne out by facts. The Emperor Baber
(a contemporary of Henry VII.) says, “They say in some islands about
Hindostan, elephants grow to the height of ten gez [about twenty feet]. I
have never seen one above four or five gez” [eight or ten feet].
The elephants from Hindostan are the smallest; those from Pegu and Ava
being larger, as a rule. A skeleton from the latter country was presented
to the Czar Peter by the King of Persia; and the taxidermist managed
to give it a height, when mounted in the museum at St. Petersburg, of
sixteen and a half feet.
Among the natives of the elephant country, there are many curious
superstitions concerning the age, death, and final resting-place of the
great animal. The age to which they may possibly attain is a matter
of conjecture. One hundred and fifty years is considered the limit by
persons who are familiar with the subject. Expert native hunters state
that they live one hundred and twenty years, or average about eighty. Mr.
Sanderson expresses the belief that they attain one hundred and fifty
years, and bases his conclusions from his observations of the famous
elephant Bheemruttee, owned by his Highness the Mahárájah of Mysore.
It was captured in Coorg in 1805, and was then a baby elephant three
years old. In 1876 she was in her prime, and did not show any of the
evidences of age evinced by elephants that were known to be advanced
in years; and, when it is remembered that in captivity the animals are
often ill-fed and abused, it is evident that they may attain a great age.
Natives can determine the age of an Asiatic elephant within a few years.
They easily ascertain that of a young or very old animal, but those of
middle age present more difficulties. The head of an old elephant is
lean and rugged, the bones of the skull being prominent, the eyes and
temples sunken; while the fore-legs, instead of bulging out at the knees,
present the same general size throughout. An old elephant also has a
different gait from a young one: instead of putting the foot firmly upon
the ground, the heel touches it first. The surest test to the native,
however, is the ear, which is almost as conclusive a telltale as are the
teeth of a horse. In elephants not older than seven years, the top of the
ear is not turned over at the rim; but, as they grow older, it begins to
lap and curve, increasing with age; and in very old animals, the lower
portion is always torn and jagged. Elephants attain their full growth at
about twenty-five years of age, and are in full vigor at thirty-five.
The Strologas, a tribe of the Billiga-rungun hills, assert and believe
that the elephant never dies; while the Kurrabas of Kákankoté, and many
others, are firm in the belief that they have some secret place to which
they retire to die. When this idea is scouted as romance by a European,
the native invariably asks, “Did you ever see a dead elephant? Did you
ever hear of any one who did?” and the questioner and doubter is obliged
generally to answer in the negative. Not only have few sportsmen found an
elephant that had evidently died a natural death, but few natives have
ever seen one.
In all his rambles, covering nearly twenty years in the heart of the
elephant country, Mr. Sanderson never found an elephant that had died
a natural death, nor did he ever meet with a professional native
elephant-hunter who had, except during an epidemic among the animals
in the Chittagong forest. This seems extremely remarkable when it is
remembered that, while the flesh might be devoured, the bones and tusks
would last a long time. The same belief is entertained by the wild
tribes of Ceylon. Sir Emerson Tennent says, “The natives generally
assert that the body of a dead elephant is seldom or never discovered in
the woods, and certain it is, that frequenters of the forest with whom
I had conversed, whether European or Singhalese, alike are consistent
in their assurances that they have never found the remains of a dead
elephant that had died a natural death. One chief, the Wanyyah of the
Trincomalie district, told a friend of mine, that, once after a severe
murrain which had swept the province, he found the carcasses of elephants
that had died of the disease. On the other hand, a European gentleman,
who for thirty-six years without intermission had been living in the
jungle, ascending to the summits of mountains in the prosecution of the
trigonometrical survey, and penetrating valleys in tracing roads, and
opening means of communication,—one, too, who has made the habits of the
wild elephant a subject of constant study and observation,—has often
expressed to me his astonishment that, after seeing many thousands of
living elephants in all possible situations, he had never yet found a
single skeleton of a dead one, except those which had fallen by a rifle.”
The Singhalese have a superstition in relation to the close of life in
the elephant. They believe that, on feeling the approach of dissolution,
he repairs to a solitary valley, and there resigns himself to death.
A native who accompanied Mr. Cripps, when hunting in the forests of
Anarájapoora, intimated to him that he was then in the immediate
vicinity of the spot “to which the elephants come to die,” but that it
was so mysteriously concealed, that, although every one believed in its
existence, no one had ever succeeded in penetrating it. At the corral of
Kornegalle in 1847, one of the Kandyan chiefs assured him that it was
the universal belief of his countrymen, that the elephants, when about
to die, resorted to a valley in an unknown spot among the mountains to
the east of Adams Peak, which was reached by a narrow pass with walls of
rock on each side, and that here, by the side of a lake of clear water,
they took their last repose. While this belief is held by some natives of
Continental India, there is not a spot in the elephant country that has
not been penetrated by either Europeans or natives; yet the latter are
not convinced, and the mystery as to what becomes of the dead elephants
is as deep as ever. The elephants that die in captivity are victims to
the same troubles that affect all animals, and the wild elephant is
probably no exception. At the commissariat at Bengal, one hundred and
fourteen elephants died in 1874-75. Eleven died of apoplexy, three of
dysentery, five of inflammation of the lungs, thirteen of debility, one
of cold, twenty-six of zahirbad, one of vomiting, three of colic, and one
of congestion of the brain,—abundant proof to the superstitious native
that the elephant is susceptible to dissolution. Ceylon elephants are
remarkable for the numbers born without tusks. These are called mucknas,
and differ in no other respect from the elephants of Continental India.
They resemble ordinary females; the tusks being extremely small, and
useless as defence. Sometimes they are larger than ordinary tuskers; but
this may be mere accident, as is their dental defect, and it is not an
hereditary trait. So rare is a good tusker in Ceylon, that one is looked
upon as a curiosity. Sir Samuel Baker states that not over one in three
hundred possessed them; and to show the difference between these and the
continental elephant, out of one hundred and forty, fifty-one of which
were males, captured by Mr. Sanderson in Mysore, Bengal, in 1874-76, only
five were mucknas, or tuskless. We should expect to find theories at
least to explain this strange difference in an adjoining country, where
the climate and food conditions are almost identical (the food in Ceylon
is easier to obtain); but I am not aware that any of importance have been
expressed.
As large and powerful as the elephant is, it is easily dismayed and
alarmed; and many have an especial aversion to small animals. Thus, some
elephants have a great dislike for small dogs; and a mouse has been known
to cause a large tusker to snort with fear. Wild hogs are particularly
disagreeable to the great animals, and it appears that this was known to
the ancients; as Procopius, the historian of the Persian and Gothic wars,
states that at the siege of Edessa by Chosroes, the king of Persia,
in the time of Justinian, the besieged Greeks imitated the cry of the
pig to frighten the elephants of the enemy. In fact, elephants are like
other animals. They have their likes and dislikes; and their alarm at a
mouse, in justice to some of the human race, should not be used, as it
often is, as an argument in proof of their supposed cowardice and lack of
intelligence.