ASIATIC ELEPHANTS IN CAPTIVITY.
In the previous chapter we have seen how elephants were captured in the
early times in India, and how modern methods have humanized the entire
system of their seizure; and now we will glance at the huge captives
in confinement. The Asiatic elephant is a marketable commodity, and is
bought and sold like the horse in this country. After the government has
selected those needed for its use, the rest are sold. Certain places have
become famous for their sales. Stōnepoor, on the Ganges, is, perhaps,
the best known; and here, every year, a great fair is held, and many
elephants sold and exchanged. This location is particularly favorable for
the purpose, as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims meet here to worship at
the famous shrine of Shiva.
The scene at this time is one of great activity: and immense numbers of
elephants are exhibited, and many sharp bargains made; as the East Indian
elephant-traders are not a whit behind the horse-dealers of Western
countries.
Another celebrated elephant headquarters in Bengal, where these animals
are sometimes sold, is at Dacca, a populous native city of seventy
thousand inhabitants. It is about one hundred miles from the sea, and
was once noted as a ship-building port, and headquarters for a fleet of
eight hundred armed vessels, whose duty it was to protect the southern
coast from the cruel Arracanese pirates. From its location on a branch
of the Ganges, it is admirably adapted as the headquarters of the Bengal
Elephant-catching Establishment, water, grasses, and fodder of various
kinds, being plentiful; while its availability to the forests of Sylhet
Cachár and Chittagong, which abound in wild elephants, render it a
comparatively easy matter for the captives to be brought to a first-class
market.
The elephant depot is called a peelkhána, and stands in the suburbs
of the town. It embraces an area about a quarter of a mile square,
consisting of an intrenched quadrangular piece of ground, where the
pickets, to which the elephants are tethered, are arranged in regular
rows. Each picket is provided with a solid floor of stone or mortar,
where there is a post to which the elephants are fastened. During the
heat of the day, they are removed to sheds. In the enclosures are numbers
of buildings, containing the gear, and various appliances used about
elephants. There is a hospital, where the invalid elephants are tended;
for, if elephants do not die very often, they sometimes get sick, and
are then given the best of treatment. There is also a hospital, or room,
for the native doctor, who doses the elephants’ attendants when they
require it, as only a native doctor can do; and, as the elephants have a
European to look after them when ill, they probably have the best of it.
This great depot is under an English officer, who generally organizes
the great hunts that have been described. The establishment is composed
at all times of about fifty trained elephants, called koonkies. Besides
these, there are always a number undergoing the training process; and,
when ready for service, they are divided up among the various military
stations, or sold, as the case may be. Stōnepoor is the scene of
great public sales. Here those who wish to make a selection from many
elephants, congregate; and their ideas of good points are strangely at
variance with our own. The natives recognize three different castes, or
breeds, based upon certain physical peculiarities; and, when about to
purchase, they state which class they wish to invest in. In Bengal, these
breeds are known as _Koomeriah_, _Dwásala_, and _Meerga_; meaning, first,
second, and third class animals. The word _Koomeriah_ implies royalty,
and is supposed to possess every excellence, and is among elephants what
Maud S. or St. Julian are among trotting-horses. Its points, according to
Sanderson, are: barrel deep, and of great girth; legs short (especially
the hind ones) and colossal, the front pair convex on the front side from
the development of the muscles; back straight and flat, but sloping from
shoulder to tail, as an up-standing elephant must be high in front; head
and chest massive, neck thick and short; trunk broad at the base, and
proportionately heavy throughout; bump between the eyes prominent; cheeks
full; the eye full, bright, and kindly; hindquarters square and plump,
the skin rumpled, thick, inclining to folds at the root of the tail, and
soft. If the face, base of trunk, and ears be blotched with cream-colored
markings,[3] the animal’s value is enhanced thereby. The tail must be
long, but not touch the ground, and be well feathered. A _Koomeriah_
should be about nine feet and over high.
The temper of these animals of both sexes is, as a rule, superior to that
of others; and, according to the above authority, while gentleness and
submissiveness are characteristics of all elephants, the _Koomeriah_
possesses these qualities, and unanimity, urbanity, and courage, in a
high degree. In short, the _Koomeriah_ is the standard of perfection
among elephants.
The _Dwásala_ caste includes all those which rank just below this in
point of excellence; while the _Meerga_, which is supposed to be a
corruption of the Sanscrit _Mriga_, a deer, refers to all the rest;
almost the reverse of the first caste in every particular, being long
and thin of limb, with an arched, sharp-ridged back, a thin, flabby
trunk, and long and lean neck; the head small, and eyes piggish. In fact,
its whole appearance is often indicative of its nature; that is, mean
and cowardly at times. The _Meerga_, however, is not without a value,
being the swifter of the race; and, if speed alone is required, it is
more valued than the _Koomeriah_. They can always be obtained, while
_Koomeriahs_ are not always in the market. The Kábul merchants make a
specialty of them, as our Kentucky dealers do of blooded horse-stock.
Many are attached to the various courts, and devote their entire time in
hunting for first-class animals for their masters.
It sometimes happens that an elephant dies after almost reaching the
city, and the merchant is nearly ruined; but in such cases an Eastern
nobleman would consider it beneath his dignity to refuse to pay for the
defunct animal;—an example of true Oriental munificence.
The price of elephants has increased in India of late years, though
their numbers are not growing less. In 1835 they could be bought for
$225 apiece; in 1855 for $375; in 1874, $660. Now $750 is the lowest
figure for which even a young animal can be purchased. Though the prices
are very capricious, good females of full growth bring from $1,000 to
$1,500; and $10,000 is often paid for a fine _Koomeriah_. These are all
bought up by rájahs and others, who use them in their retinues, and for
temple purposes.
Elephants were often in the olden times grossly treated and starved; but
in the present day they are too valuable to be neglected, and are, as a
rule, carefully tended when under the observation of Europeans; but, if
left to the mercies of the natives to-day, they will often deprive them
of food if any thing can be gained by it.
The captive elephants require much care, from the enormous amount of food
they eat. In Bengal and Madras, the government decides how much each
elephant shall have for breakfast, dinner, and supper; and the allowance
is a liberal one. In Bengal the rations per day are four hundred pounds
of green fodder, which means grass, sugar-cane, or branches of trees; or
two hundred and forty pounds of dry fodder, namely, stalks of cut grain.
In Madras, only two hundred and fifty pounds of green fodder, and one
hundred and twenty-five of dry, are allowed;—not by any means the amount
a full-grown, hearty elephant will eat. A large tusker requires eight
hundred pounds of green fodder every eighteen hours, or day. In eight
females which were watched by Mr. Sanderson, commencing at six P.M., they
ate an average weight of six hundred and fifty pounds by twelve A.M. the
next day. They also had eighteen pounds of grain a day.
The elephants are required to bring in their own green fodder; and one
can conveniently carry a load of eight hundred pounds, or one day’s food.
The discrepancy between this showing and that which the Madras elephants
received, was made a subject of investigation by the government at the
suggestion of Mr. Sanderson, and resulted in the poor creatures receiving
their proper allowance. It was found by the investigating officers, that
the animals which had been having two hundred and fifty pounds of green
fodder, could eat seven hundred and fifty pounds of dry sugar-cane: so
for years they had been worked hard and half starved, merely because the
government had fixed the rate _per diem_. This is another instance of the
reforms that have been instituted by Mr. Sanderson, who has the thanks of
all admirers of this noble animal.
If an elephant in confinement possesses such a seemingly enormous
appetite, a herd must be an expensive luxury to keep. In Bengal the
expense for one elephant _per mensem_ is as follows:—
RS. AS.[4]
1 mahout (driver) 6 0
1 grass-cutter 5 0
18 lbs. unhusked rice per day, at 64 lbs. per rupee 8 7
Allowance for medicines, salt, etc 13
Fodder allowance at 2 annas _per diem_ 3 12
------
24 0
In Madras it is forty-eight rupees.