to all quadrupeds; that dogs running near him produce annoyance; that he
is alarmed if a hare start from her form;" and from Pliny to Buffon
every naturalist has recorded its supposed aversion to swine.[1] These
alleged antipathies are in a great degree, if not entirely, 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 abundance that it is obtained without an effort. In
the quiet solitudes of Ceylon, elephants may constantly be seen browsing
peacefully in the immediate vicinity of other animals, and 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 close 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 elephants. The elephant's natural timidity, however,
is such that it becomes alarmed on the appearance in the jungle of any
animal with which 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
alarmed 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.[2] 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[3], 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
under foot.[4] But the display was avowedly an artificial one, and the
creature must have been cruelly tutored for the occasion.
[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," ch. iii.]
[Footnote 2: This peculiarity was noticed by the ancients, and is
recorded by Herodotus: [Greek: "kamêlon hippos phobeetai, kai ouk
anechetai oute tên ideên autês oreôn oute tên odmên osphrainomenos"]
(Herod. ch. 80). Camels have long been bred by the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, at his establishment near Pisa, and even there the same
instinctive dislike to them is manifested by the horse, which it is
necessary to train and accustom to their presence in order to avoid
accidents. Mr. BRODERIP mentions, that, "when the precaution of such
training has not been adopted, the sudden and dangerous terror with
which a horse is seized in coming unexpectedly upon one of them is
excessive."--_Note-book of a Naturalist_, ch. iv. p. 113.]
[Footnote 3: Major ROGERS was many years the chief civil officer of
Government in the district of Oovah, where he was killed by lightning,
1845.]
[Footnote 4: "Quidam etiam cum equis silvestribus pugnant. Sæpe unus
elephas cum sex equis committitur; atque ipse adeo interfui cum unus
elephas duos equos cum primo impetu protinus prosternerit;--injecta enim
jugulis ipsorum longa proboscide, ad se protractos, dentibus porro
comminuit ac protrivit." _Angli Cujusdam in Cambayam Navigatio_. DE BRY,
_Coll., &c._, vol. iii. ch. xvi. p. 31.]
Pigs are constantly to be seen feeding about the stables of the tame
elephants, which manifest no repugnance to them. As to the 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; but
it would be idle to suppose that this feeling could amount to hostility
against a creature incapable of inflicting on it the slightest
injury.[1] 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 ease. Or
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 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.
[Footnote 1: To account for the impatience manifested by the elephant at
the presence of a dog, it has been suggested that he is alarmed lest the
latter should attack _his feet_, a portion of his body of which the
elephant is peculiarly careful. A tame elephant has been observed to
regard with indifference a spear directed towards his head, but to
shrink timidly from the same weapon when pointed at his foot.]
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
to flight. On the whole, therefore, I am of opinion that the elephant
lives on terms of amity with every quadruped 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_!
The 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 him by their audacity in
making free with his 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 it is their habit 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.[1]
[Footnote 1: A writer in the _India Sporting Review_ for October 1857
says a male elephant was killed by two others close to his camp: "the
head was completely smashed in; there was a large hole in the side, and
the abdomen was ripped open. The latter wound was given probably after
it had fallen."--P. 175.]
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.[1]
[Footnote 1: In the Third Book of Maccabees, which is not printed in our
Apocrypha, but appears in the series in the Greek Septuagint, the
author, in describing the persecution of the Jews by Ptolemy Philopater,
B.C. 210, states that the king swore vehemently that he would send them
into the other world, "foully trampled to death by the knees and feet of
elephants" ([Greek: pempsein eis hadên en gonasi kai posi thêrion
hêkismenous.] 3 Mac. v. 42). ÆLIAN makes the remark, that elephants on
such occasions use their _knees_ as well as their feet to crush their
victims.--_Hist Anim._ viii. 10.]
A sportsman who had partially undergone this operation, having been
seized by a wounded elephant but rescued 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 such scenes, has 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.[1]
[Footnote 1: The _Hastisilpe_, a Singhalese work which treats of the
"Science of Elephants," enumerates amongst those which it is not
desirable to possess, "the elephant which will fight with a stone or a
stick in his trunk."]
Placed as the elephant 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 enemies against whom to protect
itself, it is difficult to conjecture any probable utility which it
could 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 oeconomy 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 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 his 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 in feeding[1]; 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 removed 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.[2]
[Footnote 1: Among other eccentric forms, an elephant was seen in 1844,
in the district of Bintenne, near Friar's-Hood Mountain, one of whose
tusks was so bent that it took what sailors term a "round turn," and
resumed its curved direction as before. In the Museum of the College of
Surgeons, London, there is a specimen, No. 2757, of a _spira_ tusk.]
[Footnote 2: Since the foregoing remarks were written relative to the
undefined use of tusks to the elephant, I have seen a speculation on the
same subject in Dr. HOLLAND'S "_Constitution of the Animal Creation, as
expressed in structural Appendages_;" but the conjecture of the author
leaves the problem scarcely less obscure than before. Struck with the
mere _supplemental_ presence of the tusks, the absence of all apparent
use serving to distinguish them from the essential organs of the
creature, Dr. HOLLAND concludes that their production is a process
incident, but not ancillary, to other important ends, especially
connected with the vital functions of the trunk and the marvellous
motive powers inherent to it; his conjecture is, that they are "a
species of safety valve of the animal oeconomy,"--and that "they owe
their development to the predominance of the senses of touch and smell,
conjointly with the muscular motions of which the exercise of these is
accompanied." "Had there been no proboscis," he thinks, "there would
have been no supplementary appendages,--the former creates the
latter."--Pp. 246, 271.]
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 it 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 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 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, I saw the wise creature stoop and
take up its heavy 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.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Chapter on Mammalia, p. 60.]
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 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.[1] 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.
[Footnote 1: A native of rank informed me, that "the tail of a
high-caste elephant will sometimes touch the ground, but such are very
rare."]
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 coarse husk of a
coco-nut. This kind of attention, together with the occasional
application of oil, gives rise to the deeper black which the hides of
the latter present.
Amongst the native 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 destroy the outer
cuticle.[1]
[Footnote 1: This is confirmed by the fact that the scar of the ancle
wound, occasioned by the rope on the legs of those which have been
captured by noosing, presents precisely the same tint in the healed
parts.]
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 by 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[1]; 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[2]; the sovereign of Ceylon
being addressed as the "Lord of Elephants."[3] In 1633 a white elephant
was exhibited in Holland[4]; 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.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 254, A.D. 433.]
[Footnote 2: PALLEGOIX, _Siam, &c._, vol. i. p. 152.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xviii. p. 111. The Hindu sovereigns of
Orissa, in the middle ages, bore the style of _Gaja-pati_, "powerful in
elephants."--_Asiat. Res_. xv. 253.]
[Footnote 4: ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Elephants_, lib. ii. c. x. p.
380. HORACE mentions a white elephant as having been exhibited at Rome:
"Sive elephas albus vulgi converteret ora."--HOR. _Ep_. II. 196.]
CHAP. III.
THE ELEPHANT.
* * * * *
_Habits when Wild_.
Although found generally in warm and sunny climates, it is a mistake to
suppose that the elephant is partial either to heat or to light. In
Ceylon, the mountain tops, and not the sultry valleys, are its favourite
resort. In Oovah, where the elevated plains are often crisp with the
morning frost, and on Pedura-talla-galla, at the height of upwards of
eight thousand feet, they are found in herds, whilst the hunter may
search for them without success in the hot jungles of the low country.
No altitude, in fact, seems too lofty or too chill for the elephant,
provided it affords the luxury of water in abundance; and, contrary to
the general opinion that the elephant delights in sunshine, it seems at
all times impatient of glare, and spends the day in the thickest depth
of the forests, devoting the night to excursions, and to the luxury of
the bath, in which it also indulges occasionally by day. This partiality
for shade is doubtless ascribable to the animal's love of coolness and
solitude; but it is not altogether unconnected with the position of the
eye, and the circumscribed use which its peculiar mode of life permits
it to make of the faculty of sight.
All the elephant hunters and natives to whom I have spoken on the
subject, concur in opinion that its range of vision is circumscribed,
and that it relies more on its ear and sense of smell than on its sight,
which is liable to be obstructed by dense foliage; besides which, from
the formation of its short neck, the elephant is incapable of directing
the range of the eye much above the level of the head.[1]
[Footnote 1: After writing the above, I was permitted by the late Dr.
HARRISON, of Dublin, to see some accurate drawings of the brain of an
elephant, which he had the opportunity of dissecting in 1847; and on
looking to that of the base, I have found a remarkable verification of
the information which I collected in Ceylon.
The small figure A is the ganglion of the fifth nerve, showing the small
motor and large sensitive portion.
[Illustration]
The _olfactory lobes_, from which the olfactory nerves proceed, are
large, whilst the _optic and muscular nerves of the orbit are singularly
small_ for so vast an animal; and one is immediately struck by the
prodigious size of the fifth nerve, which supplies the proboscis with
its exquisite sensibility, as well as by the great size of the motor
portion of the seventh, which supplies the same organ with its power of
movement and action.]
The elephant's small range of vision is sufficient to account for its
excessive caution, its alarm at unusual noises, and the timidity and
panic exhibited at trivial objects and incidents which, imperfectly
discerned, excite suspicions for its safety.[1] In 1841 an officer[2]
was chased by an elephant that he had slightly wounded. Seizing him near
the dry bed of a river, the animal had its forefoot already raised to
crush him; but its forehead being caught at the instant by the tendrils
of a climbing plant which had suspended itself from the branches above,
it suddenly turned and fled; leaving him badly hurt, but with no limb
broken. I have heard similar instances, equally well attested, of this
peculiarity in the elephant.
[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," p. 27.]
[Footnote 2: Major ROGERS. An account of this singular adventure will be
found in the _Ceylon Miscellany_ for 1842, vol. i. p. 221.]