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THE
WILD ELEPHANT.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
[Illustration: AN ELEPHANT CORRAL.]
THE
WILD ELEPHANT
AND
_THE METHOD OF CAPTURING
AND TAMING IT IN
CEYLON_.
BY
SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT, BART.
K.C.S. LL.D. F.R.S. &c.
AUTHOR OF “CEYLON, AN ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND,
PHYSICAL, HISTORICAL, AND TOPOGRAPHICAL,”
ETC.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1867.
_TO_
MY INTELLIGENT COMPANION
IN MANY OF THE JOURNEYS THROUGHOUT THE MOUNTAINS AND
FORESTS OF CEYLON, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH MUCH
OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS
VOLUME WAS COLLECTED;
_TO_
MAJOR SKINNER,
CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF ROADS AND PUBLIC WORKS,
ETC., ETC.
ONE OF THE MOST EXPERIENCED AND VALUABLE SERVANTS OF
THE CROWN;
IT IS INSCRIBED,
IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY RECALL TO HIM THE
PLEASANT MEMORIES WHICH IT
AWAKES IN ME.
PREFACE.
In this volume, the chapters descriptive of the structure and habits
of the wild elephant are reprinted for the sixth time from a larger
work,[1] published originally in 1859. Since the appearance of the
First Edition, many corrections and much additional matter have been
supplied to me, chiefly from India and Ceylon, and will be found
embodied in the following pages.
To one of these in particular I feel bound to direct attention. In the
course of a more enlarged essay on the zoology of Ceylon,[2] amongst
other proofs of a geological origin for that island, distinct from
that of the adjacent continent of India, as evidenced by peculiarities
in the flora and fauna of each respectively, I had occasion to advert
to a discovery which had been recently announced by Temminck in
his _Survey of the Dutch possessions in the Indian Archipelago_,[3]
that the elephant which abounds in Sumatra (although unknown in the
adjacent island of Java), and which had theretofore been regarded as
identical in species with the Indian one, has been found to possess
peculiarities, in which it differs as much from the elephant of India
as the latter does from its African congener. On this new species, to
which the natives give the name of “_gadjah_,” TEMMINCK has conferred
the scientific designation of the _Elephas Sumatranus_. The points
which entitle it to this distinction he enumerates minutely in the
work[4] before alluded to, and they have been summarized as follows by
Prince Lucien Bonaparte.
“This species is perfectly intermediate between the Indian and African,
especially in the shape of the skull, and will certainly put an end to
the distinction between _Elephas_ and _Loxodon_, with those who admit
that anatomical genus; since although the crowns of the teeth of _E.
Sumatranus_ are more like the Asiatic animal, still the less numerous
undulated ribbons of enamel are nearly quite as wide as those forming
the lozenges of the African. The number of pairs of false ribs (which
alone vary, the true ones being always six) is fourteen, one less
than in the _Africanus_, _one_ more than in the _Indicus_; and so
it is with the dorsal vertebræ, which are twenty in the _Sumatranus_
(_twenty-one_ and _nineteen_ in the others), whilst the new species
agrees with _Africanus_ in the number of sacral vertebræ (_four_), and
with _Indicus_ in that of the caudal ones, which are _thirty-four_.”[5]
Professor SCHLEGEL of Leyden, in a paper lately submitted by him to
the Royal Academy of Sciences of Holland, (the substance of which he
obligingly communicated to me, through Baron Bentinck the Netherlands
Minister at this Court), confirmed the identity of the Ceylon
elephant with that found in the Lampongs of Sumatra. The osteological
comparison of which TEMMINCK has given the results was, he says,
conducted by himself with access to four skeletons of the latter; and
the more recent opportunity of comparing a living Sumatran elephant
with one from Bengal, served to establish other though minor points
of divergence. The Indian species is more robust and powerful; the
proboscis longer and more slender; and the extremity, (a point in which
the elephant of Sumatra resembles that of Africa,) is more flattened
and provided with coarser and longer hair than that of India.
Professor SCHLEGEL, adverting to the large export of elephants from
Ceylon to the Indian continent, which has been carried on from
time immemorial, suggests the caution with which naturalists, in
investigating this question, should first satisfy themselves whether
the elephants they examine are really natives of the mainland,
or whether they have been brought to it from the islands. “The
extraordinary fact,” he observes in his letter to me, “of the identity
thus established between the elephants of Ceylon and Sumatra, and the
points in which they are found to differ from that of Bengal, leads to
the question whether all the elephants of the Asiatic continent belong
to one single species; or whether these vast regions may not produce in
some quarter as yet unexplored the one hitherto found only in the two
islands referred to? It is highly desirable that naturalists who have
the means and opportunity, should exert themselves to discover, whether
any traces are to be found of the Ceylon elephant in the Dekkan; or of
that of Sumatra in Cochin China or Siam.”
To me the establishment of a fact so conclusively confirmatory of the
theory I had ventured to broach, was productive of great satisfaction.
But in an essay by DR. FALCONER, since published in the _Natural
History Review_ for January 1863, “On the Living and Extinct Species of
Elephants,” he adduces reasons for questioning the accuracy of these
views as to _Elephas Sumatranus_. The idea of a specific distinction
between the elephants of India and Ceylon, Dr. Falconer shows to have
been propounded as far back as 1834, by Mr. B. H. Hodgson, the eminent
ethnologist and explorer of the zoology of Nepal; Dr. Falconer’s own
inspection however of the examples of both as preserved in the Museum
of Leyden, not only did not lead him to accept the later conclusion of
SCHLEGEL and TEMMINCK, but induced him to doubt the correctness of the
statements published by the Prince of Canino, both as to the external
and the osteological characters of the Indian elephant. As to the
former, he declares that the differences between it and the elephant
of Ceylon are so trifling, as not to exceed similar peculiarities
observable between elephants taken in different regions of continental
India, where an experienced mahout will tell at a glance, whether a
newly captured animal was taken in the Sal forests of the North-Western
Provinces, in Assam, in Silhet, Chittagong, Tipperah, or Cuttack. The
osteological distinctions and the odontography, Dr. Falconer contends,
are insufficient to sustain the alleged separateness of species. He
equally discredits the alleged differences regarding the ribs and
dorsal vertebræ, and he concludes that, “on a review of the whole case,
the evidence in every aspect appears to him to fail in showing that the
elephant of Ceylon and Sumatra is of a species distinct from that of
continental India.”[6] He thinks it right, however, to add, that the
subject is one which “should be thoroughly investigated,” as the hasty
assumption that the elephants of Ceylon and Sumatra belong to distinct
species has been put forward to support the conjecture of a geological
formation for the island of Ceylon distinct from that of the mainland
of India; a proposition to which Dr. Falconer is not prepared to accede.
Having ventured to originate the latter theory, and having sustained
it by Schlegel’s authority as regards the elephant of Sumatra, I think
it is incumbent on me to give becoming prominence to the opposite
view entertained by one so eminently entitled to consideration as Dr.
Falconer.
In the course of my observations on the structure and functions of the
elephant, I have ventured an opinion that an animal of such ponderous
and peculiar construction, is formed chiefly for progression by easy
and steady paces, and is too weighty and unwieldy to leap, at least to
any considerable height or distance. But this opinion I felt bound to
advance with reserve, as I had seen in an interesting article in the
_Colombo Observer_ for March 1866, descriptive of a recent corral, the
statement that an infuriated elephant had “fairly leaped a barrier 15
feet high, only carrying away the upper crossbeam with a crash.” (See
p. 40.) Doubtful of some inaccuracy in the measurements, I took the
precaution of writing to Mr. Ferguson, the editor, to solicit further
enquiry. Since the following pages have been printed, I have received
from that gentleman the correction, which I now subjoin.
“My dear Sir Emerson,—I have just had a letter from Mr. Samuel
Jayetileke, the Cutchery Modliar of Kornegalle, in reply to my queries
about the height of the fence over which the elephant sprang. The
result is the usual one whenever exact measurements are substituted
for guess-work: I stated 15 feet as the height of the fence, and
this was the information given to me at the time. But the report of
Kumbowattewene, the Ratemahat-meya who has since gone to measure the
place, is, that where the elephant leaped over, the height was 12 feet.
The exact height of the leap was however only 9 feet; for besides that
in his rush he knocked away the top bar, it is found that in the corner
at which he escaped, there is a mound formed by a white ant’s nest, two
and a half feet high, on which he must have climbed to help him over. I
trust this information may be in time to prevent my original statement
from going forth without modification in your new book. The leap is
still a pretty good one.—Yours faithfully, A. M. FERGUSON, _Observer
Office_, Colombo, December 14, 1866.”
J. EMERSON TENNENT.
TEMPO MANOR, ENNISKILLEN:
_October 1, 1866_.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
_HABITS IN A STATE OF NATURE._
CHAPTER I.
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS.
PAGE
Vast numbers in Ceylon 4
Derivation of the word “elephant,” _note_ _ib._
Antiquity of the trade in elephants 5
Numbers now diminishing. _ib._
Mischief done by them to crops _ib._
Ivory scarce in Ceylon 6
Conjectures as to the absence of tusks 7
Elephant a harmless animal 9
Alleged antipathies to other animals 11
Fights with each other 15
The foot its chief weapon 16
Use of the tusks in a wild state doubtful 17
Anecdote of sagacity in an elephant at Kandy 19
Difference between African and Indian species 20
Native ideas of perfection in an elephant 21
Blotches on the skin 22
White elephants not unknown in Ceylon 23
CHAPTER II.
HABITS WHEN WILD.
Water, but not heat, essential to elephants 25
Sight limited 26
Caution 26
Smell acute 27
Hearing good _ib._
Cries of the elephant 27
Trumpeting 28
Booming noise 29
Height, exaggerated 30
Facility of stealthy motion 31
Ancient delusion as to the joints of the leg 32
Its exposure by Sir Thos. Browne _ib._
Its perpetuation by poets and others 35
Position of the elephant in sleep 38
An elephant killed on its feet 39
Mode of lying down 40
Its gait a shuffle _ib._
Power of climbing mountains 41
Facilitated by the joint of the knee 43
Mode of descending declivities, _note_ _ib._
A “herd” is a family 45
Attachment to their young 46
Suckled indifferently by the females _ib._
A “rogue” elephant 47
Their cunning and vice 48
Injuries done by them 49
The leader of a herd a tusker 50
Bathing and nocturnal gambols, description of a scene
by Major Skinner 51
Method of swimming 55
Internal anatomy imperfectly known 56
Faculty of storing water 58
Peculiarity of the stomach 59
The food of the elephant 63
Sagacity in search of it 64
Unexplained dread of fences 65
Its spirit of inquisitiveness 67
Anecdotes illustrative of its curiosity _ib._
Estimate of sagacity 68
Singular conduct of a herd during thunder _ib._
An elephant feigning death 70
_Appendix._—Narratives of natives, as to encounters with
rogue elephants 71
CHAPTER III.
ELEPHANT SHOOTING.
Vast numbers shot in Ceylon 77
Revolting details of elephant killing in Africa, _note_ 78
Fatal spots at which to aim 79
Structure of the bones of the head _ib._
Wounds which are certain to kill 80
Attitudes when surprised 83
Peculiar movements when reposing 84
Habits when attacked 85
Sagacity of native trackers 86
Courage and agility of the elephants in escape 87
Worthlessness of the carcass 89
_Note._—Singular recovery from a wound 90
PART II.
_MODE OF CAPTURE AND TRAINING._
CHAPTER I.
AN ELEPHANT CORRAL.
Early method of catching elephants 96
Capture in pit-falls, _note_ _ib._
By means of decoys 97
Panickeas—their courage and address _ib._
Their sagacity in following the elephant _ib._
Mode of capture by the noose 99
Mode of taming 100
Method of leading the elephants to the coast 101
Process of embarking them at Manaar 102
Method of capturing a whole herd 103
The “keddah” in Bengal described 104
Process of enclosing a herd _ib._
Process of capture in Ceylon 105
An elephant corral and its construction 105
An elephant hunt in Ceylon, 1847 106
The town and district of Kornegalle _ib._
The rock of Aetagalla 107
Forced labour of the corral in former times 110
Now given voluntarily 111
Form of the enclosure 112
Method of securing a wild herd 114
Scene when driving them into the corral 116
A failure _ib._
An elephant drove by night 118
Singular scene in the corral 119
Excitement of the tame elephants, _note_ _ib._
CHAPTER II.
THE CAPTIVE.
A night scene 121
Morning in the corral _ib._
Preparations for securing the captives 122
The “cooroowe,” or noosers _ib._
The tame decoys 123
First captive tied up 124
Singular conduct of the wild elephants 126
Furious attempts of the herd to escape 127
Courageous conduct of the natives 128
Variety of disposition exhibited by the herd 131
Extraordinary contortions of the captives _ib._
Water withdrawn from the stomach 133
Instinct of the decoys _ib._
Conduct of the noosers 136
The young ones and their actions 137
Noosing a “rogue,” and his death 138
Instinct of flies in search of carrion, _note_ 139
Strange scene 140
A second herd captured 142
Their treatment of a solitary elephant 143
A magnificent female elephant 144
Her extraordinary attitudes _ib._
Wonderful contortions 145
Taking the captives out of the corral 147
Their subsequent treatment and training 148
Grandeur of the scene _ib._
Story of young pet elephant 149
CHAPTER III.
TRAINING AND CONDUCT IN CAPTIVITY.
Alleged superiority of the Indian to the African elephant—not
true 150
Ditto of Ceylon elephant to Indian 152
Process of training in Ceylon 155
Allowed to bathe 156
Difference of disposition 158
Sudden death of “broken heart” 160
First employment treading clay 161
Drawing a waggon _ib._
Dragging timber _ib._
Sagacity in labour _ib._
Mode of raising stones 162
Strength in throwing down trees exaggerated _ib._
Piling timber 163
Not uniform in habits of work 164
Lazy if not watched 165
Obedience to keeper from affection, not fear _ib._
Change of keeper—story of child 166
Ear for sounds and music 167
_Ur-re! note_ _ib._
Endurance of pain 168
Docility 169
Working elephants, delicate 170
Deaths in Government stud 171
Diseases 172
Subject to tooth-ache _ib._
Question of the value of labour of an elephant 174
Food in captivity, and cost 175
Breed in captivity 176
Age 177
Theory of M. Fleurens _ib._
No dead elephants found 179
Sindbad’s story 181
_Appendix._—Passage from Ælian 183
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
View of an Elephant Corral _Frontispiece_
Brain of the Elephant 26
The Trunk as figured in the fifteenth century 28
Bones of the Fore-leg 41
Elephant descending a Hill 44
Elephant’s Well 55
Elephant’s Stomach, showing the Water-cells 59
Elephant’s Trachea 60
Water-cells in the Stomach of the Camel 62
Section of the Elephant’s Skull 80
Ground Plan and Fence of a Corral 112
Noosing Wild Elephants _to face_ 124
Mode of tying an Elephant 126
His Struggles for Freedom 127
Impotent Fury 130
Singular Contortions of an Elephant 132
Attitudes of Captives _to face_ 134
Obstinate Resistance 135
Attitude for Defence 147
Figures of the African and Indian Elephants on Greek and
Roman Coins 151
Medal of Numidia 156
Modern Hendoo _ib._
_PART I._
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS.
THE
WILD ELEPHANT
CHAPTER I.
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS.
During my residence in Ceylon, I had on two occasions opportunities of
witnessing the operation on a grand scale, of capturing wild elephants,
intended to be trained for the Government service in the establishment
of the Civil Engineer and Commissioner of Roads;—and in the course of
my frequent journeys through the interior of the island, I succeeded
in collecting so many facts relative to the habits of these animals so
interesting in a state of nature, as enable me not only to add to the
information previously possessed, but to correct some of the fallacies
popularly entertained regarding their disposition and instincts. These
particulars I am anxious to place on record before proceeding to
describe the scenes I allude to, during the progress of the elephant
hunts in the district of the Seven Korles, at which I was present in
1846, and again in 1847.
With the exception of the narrow but densely inhabited belt of
cultivated land, that extends along the seaborde from Chilaw on the
western coast towards Tangalle on the south-east, there is no part of
Ceylon in which elephants may not be said to abound; even close to the
environs of the most populous localities of the interior. They frequent
both the open plains and the deep forests; and their footsteps are to
be seen wherever food and shade, vegetation and water,[7] allure them,
alike on the summits of the loftiest mountains, and on the borders of
the tanks and lowland streams.
From time immemorial the Singhalese have been taught to capture and
tame them, and the export of elephants from Ceylon to India has been
going on without interruption from the period of the first Punic
War.[8] In later times in all forests elephants were the property of
the Kandyan crown; and their capture or slaughter without the royal
permission was classed amongst grave offences in the criminal code.
In recent years there is reason to believe that their numbers have
become considerably reduced. They have entirely disappeared from
localities in which they were formerly numerous;[9] smaller herds have
been taken in the periodical captures for the public service, and
hunters returning from the chase report them to be growing year by year
more and more scarce. In consequence of this diminution the natives in
some parts of the island have even suspended the ancient practice of
keeping watchers and fires by night to scare away elephants from their
growing crops.[10] The opening of roads too in the hill districts,
and the clearing of the mountain forests of Kandy for the cultivation
of coffee, have forced the animals to retire to the low country,
where again they have been followed by large parties of European
sportsmen; and the Singhalese themselves, being more freely provided
with arms than in former times, have assisted in swelling the annual
slaughter.[11]
Had the motive that incites to the destruction of the elephant in
Africa and India prevailed in Ceylon, that is, had the elephants there
been provided with tusks, they would long since have been annihilated
for the sake of the ivory.[12] But it is a curious fact that, whilst
in Africa and India both sexes have tusks,[13] with some slight
disproportion in the size of those of the females; in Ceylon, not one
elephant in a hundred is found with tusks, and the few that possess
them are exclusively males. Nearly all, however, have those stunted
processes called _tushes_, about ten or twelve inches in length and
one or two in diameter. These I have observed them to use in loosening
earth, stripping off bark, and snapping asunder small branches and
climbing plants; and hence tushes are seldom seen without a groove worn
into them near their extremities.[14]
Amongst other surmises more ingenious than sound, the general
absence of tusks in the elephant of Ceylon has been associated with
the profusion of rivers and streams in the island; whilst it has
been thrown out as a possibility that in Africa, where water is
comparatively scarce, the animal is equipped with these implements in
order to assist it in digging wells in the sand and in raising the
juicy roots of the mimosas and succulent plants for the sake of their
moisture. In support of this hypothesis, it has been observed, that
whilst the tusks of the Ceylon species, which are never required for
such uses, are slender, graceful and curved, seldom exceeding fifty or
sixty pounds’ weight, those of the African elephant are straight and
thick, weighing occasionally 150 pounds, and even 300 pounds.[15] But
it is manifestly inconsistent with the idea that tusks were given to
the elephant to assist in digging for food, to find that the females
are less bountifully supplied with them than the males, whilst
the necessity for their use extends alike to both sexes. The same
consideration serves to demonstrate the fallacy of the conjecture, that
the tusks of the elephant were given as weapons of offence, for if
such were the case the vast majority of them in Ceylon, males as well
as females, would be left helpless in presence of an assailant. But
although in their conflicts with one another, those which are provided
with tusks may occasionally push clumsily with them at an opponent, it
is a misapprehension to imagine that tusks are designed, as has been
stated, to serve “in warding off the attacks of the wily tiger and
the furious rhinoceros, often securing the victory by one blow which
transfixes the assailant to the earth.”[16]
So peaceable and harmless is the life of the elephant, that nature
appears to have left it unprovided with any special weapon of
offence: the trunk is too delicate an organ to be rudely employed in
a conflict with other animals, and although on an emergency it may
push or gore with its tusks (to which the French have hastily given
the designation of “_défenses_”), their almost vertical position,
added to the difficulty of raising its head above the level of the
shoulder, is inconsistent with the idea of their being designed for
attack, since it is impossible for the animal to deliver an effectual
blow, or to “wield” its tusks as the deer and the buffalo can wield
their horns.[17] Nor is it easy to conceive under what circumstances an
elephant could have a hostile encounter with a rhinoceros or a tiger,
since their respective pursuits in a state of nature can in no way
conflict.
Towards man the elephant evinces shyness, arising from love of solitude
and dislike of intrusion; any alarm exhibited at his appearance may be
reasonably traced to the slaughter which has reduced their numbers;
and as some evidence of this, it has always been observed in Ceylon
that an elephant manifests greater impatience of the presence of a
white man than of a native. Were its instincts to carry it further, or
were it influenced by any feeling of animosity or malignity, it must
be apparent that, as against the prodigious numbers that inhabit the
forests of the island, man would wage an unequal contest, and that of
the two, one or other must long since have been reduced to a helpless
minority.
Official testimony is not wanting in confirmation of this view: in
the returns of 108 coroner’s inquests in Ceylon, during five years
from 1849 to 1855 inclusive, held in cases of death occasioned by wild
animals, 15 are recorded as having been caused by buffaloes, 6 by
crocodiles, 2 by boars, 1 by a bear, and 68 by serpents (the great
majority of the last class of sufferers being women and children, who
had been bitten during the night), and 16 by elephants. Little more
than three fatal accidents occurring annually on the average of five
years, is certainly a very small proportion in a population estimated
at a million and a half, in an island abounding with wild elephants,
with which, independently of casual encounters, voluntary conflicts
are daily stimulated by the love of sport or the hope of gain. Were
the elephants instinctively vicious or even highly irritable in their
temperament, the destruction of human life under the circumstances
must have been infinitely greater. It must also be taken into account,
that some of the accidents recorded may have occurred in the rutting
season, when even tame elephants are subject to fits of temporary fury,
known in India by the term _must_, in Ceylon _mudda_,—a paroxysm which
speedily passes away, but during the fury of which it is dangerous even
for the mahout who has charge of them to approach those ordinarily the
gentlest and most familiar.
Again, the elephant is said to “entertain an extraordinary dislike to
all quadrupeds; that dogs running near it produce annoyance; that it
is alarmed if a hare start from her form;” and from Pliny to Buffon
every naturalist has asserted its supposed aversion to swine.[18]
These alleged antipathies are in a great degree, if not altogether,
imaginary. The habits of the elephant are essentially harmless, its
wants lead to no rivalry with other animals, and the food to which
it is most attached flourishes in such luxuriance that abundance of
it is obtained without an effort. In the quiet solitudes of Ceylon,
elephants may be seen browsing peacefully in the immediate vicinity
of other animals, and often in close contact with them. I have seen
groups of deer and wild buffaloes reclining in the sandy bed of a
river in the dry season, and elephants plucking the branches above and
beside them. They show no impatience in the company of the elk, the
bear, and the wild hog; and on the other hand, I have never discovered
an instance in which these animals have evinced any apprehension of
the elephant. Its natural timidity, however, is such that it becomes
alarmed on the appearance in the jungle of any animal with whose form
it is not familiar. It is said to be afraid of the horse; but from my
own experience, I should say it is the horse that is disquieted at
the aspect of the elephant. In the same way, from some unaccountable
impulse, the horse has an antipathy to the camel, and evinces extreme
impatience, both of the sight and the smell of that animal.[19] When
enraged, an elephant will not hesitate to charge a rider on horseback;
but it is against the man, not against the horse, that his fury is
directed; and no instance has been ever known of his wantonly assailing
a horse. A horse belonging to the late Major Rogers[20] had run away
from his groom, and was found some considerable time afterwards grazing
quietly with a herd of elephants. In DE BRY’S splendid collection of
travels, however, there is included _The voyage of a certain Englishman
to Cambay_; in which the author asserts that at Agra, in the year 1607,
he was present at a spectacle given by the viceregent of the great
Mogul, in the course of which he saw an elephant destroy two horses,
by seizing them in its trunk, and crushing them with his tusks and
feet.[21] But this display was avowedly an artificial one, and the
creature must have been cruelly trained and tutored for the occasion.
Pigs are constantly to be seen feeding about the stables of tame
elephants, which manifest no repugnance to them. As to smaller animals,
the elephant undoubtedly evinces uneasiness at the presence of a dog,
but this is referable to the same cause as its impatience of a horse,
namely, that neither is habitually seen by it in the forest; and it
would be idle to suppose that this feeling could amount to hostility
against a creature incapable of inflicting on it the slightest
injury.[22] The truth I apprehend to be that, when they meet, the
impudence and impertinences of the dog are offensive to the gravity of
the elephant, and incompatible with his love of solitude and noiseless
repose. Or, as regards the horse and the dog, may it be assumed as an
evidence of the sagacity of the elephant, that the only two animals
to which it manifests an antipathy, are the two which it has seen
only in the company of its greatest enemy, man? One instance has
certainly been attested to me by an eye-witness, in which the trunk
of an elephant was seized in the teeth of a Scotch terrier, and such
was the alarm of the huge creature that it came at once to its knees.
The dog repeated the attack, and on every renewal of it the elephant
retreated in terror, holding its trunk above its head, and kicking at
the terrier with its fore feet. It would have turned to flight but for
the interference of its keeper.
Major Skinner, formerly commissioner of roads in Ceylon, whose official
duties in constructing highways involved the necessity of his being in
the jungle for months together, always found that, by night or by day,
the barking of a dog which accompanied him was sufficient to put a herd
of wild elephants to flight. On the whole, therefore, I am of opinion
that in a state of nature the elephant lives on terms of amity with
every animal in the forest, that it neither regards them as its foes,
nor provokes their hostility by its acts; and that, with the exception
of man, its greatest enemy is a fly!
These current statements as to the supposed animosity of the elephant
to minor animals originated with Ælian and Pliny, who had probably an
opportunity of seeing, what may at any time be observed, that when
a captive elephant is picketed beside a post, the domestic animals,
goats, sheep, and cattle, will annoy and irritate it by their audacity
in making free with its provender; but this is an evidence in itself of
the little instinctive dread which such comparatively puny creatures
entertain of one so powerful and yet so gentle.
Amongst elephants themselves, jealousy and other causes of irritation
frequently occasion contentions between individuals of the same herd;
but on such occasions their general habit is to strike with their
trunks, and to bear down their opponents with their heads. It is
doubtless correct that an elephant, when prostrated by the force and
fury of an antagonist of its own species, is often wounded by the
downward pressure of the tusks, which in any other position it would
be almost impossible to use offensively.[23]
Mr. Mercer, who in 1846 was the principal civil officer of Government
at Badulla, sent me a jagged fragment of an elephant’s tusk, about five
inches in diameter, and weighing between twenty and thirty pounds,
which had been brought to him by some natives, who, being attracted
by a noise in the jungle, witnessed a combat between a tusker and one
without tusks, and saw the latter with his trunk seize one of the tusks
of his antagonist and wrench from it the portion in question, which
measured two feet in length.
Here the trunk was shown to be the more powerful offensive weapon of
the two; but I apprehend that the chief reliance of the elephant for
defence is on its ponderous weight, the pressure of its foot being
sufficient to crush any minor assailant after being prostrated by means
of its trunk. Besides, in using its feet for this purpose, it derives a
wonderful facility from the peculiar formation of the knee-joint in the
hind leg, which, enabling it to swing the hind feet forward close to
the ground, assists it to toss the body alternately from foot to foot,
till deprived of life.[24]
A sportsman who had partially undergone this operation, having been
seized by a wounded elephant but escaped from its fury, described to me
his sufferings as he was thus flung back and forward between the hind
and fore feet of the animal, which ineffectually attempted to trample
him at each concussion, and abandoned him without inflicting serious
injury.
Knox, in describing the execution of criminals by the state elephants
of the former kings of Kandy, says, “they will run their teeth
(_tusks_) through the body, and then tear it in pieces and throw it
limb from limb;” but a Kandyan chief, who was witness to these scenes,
assured me that the elephant never once applied its tusks, but, placing
its foot on the prostrate victim, plucked off his limbs in succession
by a sudden movement of the trunk. If the tusks were designed to be
employed offensively, some alertness would naturally be exhibited in
using them; but in numerous instances where sportsmen have fallen
into the power of a wounded elephant, they have escaped through the
failure of the enraged animal to strike them with its tusks, even when
stretched upon the ground.[25]
But here there arises a further and a very curious enquiry, as to
the specific objects in the economy of the elephant, to which its
tusks are conducive. Placed as it is in Ceylon, in the midst of the
most luxuriant profusion of its favourite food, in close proximity at
all times to abundant supplies of water, and with no natural enemies
against whom to protect itself, it is difficult to conjecture any
probable utility which it can derive from such appendages. Their
absence is unaccompanied by any inconvenience to the individuals in
whom they are wanting; and as regards the few who possess them, the
only operations in which I am aware of their tusks being employed in
relation to the habits of the animal, is to assist in ripping open the
stem of the jaggery palms and young palmyras to extract the farinaceous
core; and in splitting up the juicy shaft of the plantain. Whilst the
tuskless elephant crushes the latter under foot, thereby soiling it and
wasting its moisture; the other, by opening it with the point of its
tusk, performs the operation with delicacy and apparent ease.
These, however, are trivial and almost accidental advantages: on the
other hand, owing to irregularities in their growth, the tusks are
sometimes an impediment to the animal in feeding;[26] and in more than
one instance in the Government studs, tusks which had so grown as to
approach and cross one another at the extremities, have had to be
relieved by the saw; the contraction of space between them so impeding
the free action of the trunk as to prevent the animal from conveying
branches to its mouth.[27]
It is true that in captivity, and after a due course of training, the
elephant discovers a new use for its tusks when employed in moving
stones and piling timber; so much so that a powerful one will raise and
carry on them a log of half a ton weight or more. One evening, whilst
riding in the vicinity of Kandy, towards the scene of the massacre
of Major Davie’s party in 1803, my horse evinced some excitement at
a noise which approached us in the thick jungle, and which consisted
of a repetition of the ejaculation _urmph! urmph!_ in a hoarse and
dissatisfied tone. A turn in the forest explained the mystery, by
bringing me face to face with a tame elephant, unaccompanied by any
attendant. He was labouring painfully to carry a heavy beam of timber,
which he balanced across his tusks, but the pathway being narrow, he
was forced to bend his head to one side to permit the load to pass
endways; and the exertion and this inconvenience combined led him to
utter the dissatisfied sounds which disturbed the composure of my
horse. On seeing us halt, the elephant raised his head, reconnoitred
us for a moment, then flung down the timber, and voluntarily forced
himself backwards among the brushwood so as to leave a passage, of
which he expected us to avail ourselves. My horse hesitated: the
elephant observed it, and impatiently thrust himself still deeper into
the jungle, repeating his cry of _urmph!_ but in a voice evidently
meant to encourage us to advance. Still the horse trembled; and anxious
to observe the instinct of the two sagacious animals, I laid the rein
upon its neck and forbore any interference: again the elephant of his
own accord wedged himself further in amongst the trees, and manifested
some impatience that we did not pass him. At length the horse moved
forward; and when we were fairly past the elephant I looked back and
saw the wise creature stoop and take up its unwieldy burthen, trim
and balance it on its tusks, and resume its route as before, hoarsely
snorting its discontented remonstrance.
Between the African elephant and that of Ceylon, with the exception of
the striking peculiarity of the infrequency of tusks in the latter,
the distinctions are less apparent to a casual observer than to a
scientific naturalist. In the Ceylon species the forehead is higher and
more hollow, the ears are smaller, and, in a section of the teeth, the
grinding ridges, instead of being lozenge-shaped, are transverse bars
of uniform breadth.
The Indian elephant is stated by Cuvier to have four nails on the
hind foot, the African variety having only three; but amongst the
perfections of a high-bred elephant of Ceylon, is always enumerated the
possession of _twenty_ nails, whilst those of a secondary class have
but eighteen in all.[28]
So conversant are the natives with the structure and “points” of the
elephant, that they divide them readily into castes, and describe
with particularity their distinctive excellences and defects. In
the _Hastisilpe_, a Singhalese work which treats of their natural
management, the marks of inferior breeding are said to be “eyes
restless like those of a crow, the hair of the head of mixed shades;
the face wrinkled; the tongue curved and black; the nails short
and green; the ears small; the neck thin, the skin freckled; the
tail without a tuft, and the fore-quarter lean and low;” whilst the
perfection of form and beauty is supposed to consist in the “softness
of the skin, the red colour of the mouth and tongue, the forehead
expanded and hollow, the ears broad and rectangular, the trunk broad at
the root and blotched with pink in front; the eyes bright and kindly,
the cheeks large, the neck full, the back level, the chest square, the
fore legs short and convex in front, the hind quarter plump, and five
nails on each foot, all smooth, polished, and round.[29] An elephant
with these perfections,” says the author of the _Hastisilpe_, “will
impart glory and magnificence to the king; but he cannot be discovered
amongst thousands, yea, there shall never be found an elephant clothed
at once with _all_ the excellences herein described.” The “points” of
an elephant are to be studied with the greatest advantage in those
attached to the temples, which are always of the highest caste, and
exhibit the most perfect breeding.
The colour of the animal’s skin in a state of nature is generally
of a lighter brown than that of those in captivity; a distinction
which arises, in all probability, not so much from the wild animal’s
propensity to cover itself with mud and dust, as from the superior care
which is taken in repeatedly bathing the tame ones, and in rubbing
their skins with a soft stone, a lump of burnt clay, or the rough husk
of a coco-nut. This kind of discipline, together with the occasional
application of oil, gives rise to the deeper black which the hides of
the latter present.
Amongst the Singhalese, however, a singular preference is evinced for
elephants that exhibit those flesh-coloured blotches which occasionally
mottle the skin of an elephant, chiefly about the head and extremities.
The front of the trunk, the tips of the ears, the forehead, and
occasionally the legs, are thus diversified with stains of a yellowish
tint, inclining to pink. These are not natural; nor are they
hereditary, for they are seldom exhibited by the younger individuals
in a herd, but appear to be the result of some eruptive affection, the
irritation of which has induced the animal in its uneasiness to rub
itself against the rough bark of trees, and thus to abrade the outer
cuticle.[30]
To a European these spots appear blemishes, and the taste that leads
the natives to admire them is probably akin to the feeling that has
at all times rendered _a white elephant_ an object of wonder to
Asiatics. The rarity of the latter is accounted for by regarding this
peculiar appearance as the result of albinism; and notwithstanding the
exaggeration of Oriental historians, who compare the fairness of such
creatures to the whiteness of snow, even in its utmost perfection,
I apprehend that the tint of a white elephant is little else than a
flesh-colour, rendered somewhat more conspicuous by the blanching of
the skin, and the lightness of the colourless hairs with which it is
sparsely covered. A white elephant is mentioned in the _Mahawanso_ as
forming part of the retinue attached to the “Temple of the Tooth” at
Anarajapoora, in the fifth century after Christ;[31] but it commanded
no religious veneration, and like those in the stud of the kings of
Siam, it was tended merely as an emblem of royalty;[32] the sovereign
of Ceylon being addressed as the “Lord of Elephants.”[33] At the same
time it admits of no doubt that in the early ages, white animals were
in some parts of the East the objects of devout adoration. Herodotus
alludes to the sacred white horses, ἱερῶν ἵππων τῶν λευκῶν, which
accompanied the army of Cyrus to the siege of Babylon;[34] he equally
records that amongst the Egyptians purely white oxen were sacred
to Epaphus; but one single dark hair was enough to exclude them as
unclean.[35]
In 1633 a white elephant was exhibited in Holland;[36] but as this
was some years before the Dutch had established themselves firmly
in Ceylon, it was probably brought from some other of their eastern
possessions.