compensate for the deficiency of sight. A herd is not only apprised of
the approach of danger by this means, but when scattered in the forest,
and dispersed out of range of sight, they are enabled by it to
reassemble with rapidity and adopt precautions for their common safety.
The same necessity is met by a delicate sense of hearing, and the use of
a variety of noises or calls, by means of which elephants succeed in
communicating with each other upon all emergencies. "The sounds which
they utter have been described by the African hunters as of three kinds:
the first, which is very shrill, produced by blowing through the trunk,
is indicative of pleasure; the second, produced by the mouth, is
expressive of want; and the third, proceeding from the throat, is a
terrific roar of anger or revenge."[1] These words convey but an
imperfect idea of the variety of noises made by the elephant in Ceylon;
and the shrill cry produced by blowing through his trunk, so far from
being regarded as an indication of "pleasure," is the well-known cry of
rage with which he rushes to encounter an assailant. ARISTOTLE describes
it as resembling the hoarse sound of a "trumpet."[2] The French still
designate the proboscis of an elephant by the same expression "trompe,"
(which we have unmeaningly corrupted into _trunk_,) and hence the scream
of the elephant is known as "trumpeting" by the hunters in Ceylon. Their
cry when in pain, or when subjected to compulsion, is a grunt or a deep
groan from the throat, with the proboscis curled upwards and the lips
wide apart.
[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," ch. iii. p. 68.]
[Footnote 2: ARISTOTLE, _De Anim_., lib. iv. c. 9. "[Greek: homoion
salpingi]." See also PLINY, lib. x. ch. cxiii. A manuscript in the
British Museum, containing the romance of "_Alexander_" which is
probably of the fifteenth century, is interspersed with drawings
illustrative of the strange animals of the East. Amongst them are two
elephants, whose trunks are literally in form of _trumpets with expanded
mouths_. See WRIGHT'S _Archæological Album_, p. 176.]
Should the attention of an individual in the herd be attracted by any
unusual appearance in the forest, the intelligence is rapidly
communicated by a low suppressed sound made by the lips, somewhat
resembling the twittering of a bird, and described by the hunters by the
word "_prut_."
A very remarkable noise has been described to me by more than one
individual, who has come unexpectedly upon a herd during the night, when
the alarm of the elephants was apparently too great to be satisfied with
the stealthy note of warning just described. On these occasions the
sound produced resembled the hollow booming of an empty tun when struck
with a wooden mallet or a muffled sledge. Major MACREADY, Military
Secretary in Ceylon in 1836, who heard it by night amongst the wild
elephants in the great forest of Bintenne, describes it as "a sort of
banging noise like a cooper hammering a cask;" and Major SKINNER is of
opinion that it must be produced by the elephant striking his sides
rapidly and forcibly with his trunk. Mr. CRIPPS informs me that he has
more than once seen an elephant, when surprised or alarmed, produce this
sound by striking the ground forcibly with the flat side of the trunk;
and this movement was instantly succeeded by raising it again, and
pointing it in the direction whence the alarm proceeded, as if to
ascertain by the sense of smell the nature of the threatened danger. As
this strange sound is generally mingled with the bellowing and ordinary
trumpeting of the herd, it is in all probability a device resorted to,
not alone for warning their companions of some approaching peril, but
also for the additional purpose of terrifying unseen intruders.[1]
[Footnote 1: PALLEGOIX, in his _Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam_,
adverts to a sound produced by the elephant when weary: "quand il est
fatigué, _il frappe la terre avec sa_ trompe, et en tire un son
semblable à celui du cor."--Tom. i. p. 151.]
Elephants are subject to deafness; and the Singhalese regard as the most
formidable of all wild animals, a "rogue"[1] afflicted with this
infirmity.
[Footnote 1: For an explanation of the term "rogue" as applied to an
elephant, see p. 115.]
Extravagant estimates are recorded of the height of the elephant. In an
age when popular fallacies in relation to him were as yet uncorrected in
Europe by the actual inspection of the living animal, he was supposed to
grow to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. Even within the last
century in popular works on natural history, the elephant, when full
grown, was said to measure from seventeen to twenty feet from the ground
to the shoulder.[1] At a still later period, so imperfectly had the
facts been collated, that the elephant of Ceylon was believed "to excel
that of Africa in size and strength."[2] But so far from equalling the
size of the African species, that of Ceylon seldom exceeds the height of
nine feet; even in the Hambangtotte country, where the hunters agree
that the largest specimens are to be found, the tallest of ordinary
herds do not average more than eight feet. WOLF, in his account of the
Ceylon elephant[3], says he saw one taken near Jaffna, which measured
twelve feet and one inch high. But the truth is, that the general bulk
of the elephant so far exceeds that of the animals which we are
accustomed to see daily, that the imagination magnifies its unusual
dimensions; and I have seldom or ever met with an inexperienced
spectator who did not unconsciously over-estimate the size of an
elephant shown to him, whether in captivity or in a state of nature.
Major DENHAM would have guessed some which he saw in Africa to be
sixteen feet in height, but the largest when killed was found to measure
nine feet six, from the foot to the hip-bone.[4]
[Footnote 1: _Natural History of Animals_. By Sir JOHN HILL, M.D.
London, 1748-52, p. 565. A probable source of these false estimates is
mentioned by a writer in the _Indian Sporting Review_ for Oct. 1857.
"Elephants were measured formerly, and even now, by natives, as to their
height, by throwing a rope over them, the ends brought to the ground on
each side, and half the length taken as the true height. Hence the
origin of elephants fifteen and sixteen feet high. A rod held at right
angles to the measuring rod, and parallel to the ground, will rarely
give more than ten feet, the majority being under nine."--P. 159.]
[Footnote 2: SHAW'S _Zoology_. Lond. 1806. vol. i. p. 216; ARMANDI,
_Hist. Milit. des Eléphans_, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2.]
[Footnote 3: WOLF'S _Life and Adventures, &c_., p. 164. Wolf was a
native of Mecklenburg, who arrived in Ceylon about 1750, as chaplain in
one of the Dutch East Indiamen, and having been taken into the
government employment, he served for twenty years at Jaffna, first as
Secretary to the Governor, and afterwards in an office the duties of
which he describes to be the examination and signature of the "writings
which served to commence a suit in any of the Courts of justice." His
book embodies a truthful and generally accurate account of the northern
portion of the island, with which alone he was conversant, and his
narrative gives a curious insight into the policy of the Dutch
Government, and of the condition of the natives under their dominion.]
[Footnote 4: DENHAM'S _Travels, &c_., 4to p. 220. The fossil remains of
the Indian elephant have been discovered at Jabalpur, showing a height
of fifteen feet.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng_. vi. Professor ANSTED in his
_Ancient World_, p. 197, says he was informed by Dr. Falconer "that out
of eleven hundred elephants from which the tallest were selected and
measured with care, on one occasion in India, there was not one whose
height equalled eleven feet."]
For a creature of such extraordinary weight it is astonishing how
noiselessly and stealthily the elephant can escape from a pursuer. When
suddenly disturbed in the jungle, it will burst away with a rush that
seems to bear down all before it; but the noise sinks into absolute
stillness so suddenly, that a novice might well be led to suppose that
the fugitive had only halted within a few yards of him, when further
search will disclose that it has stolen silently away, making scarcely a
sound in its escape; and, stranger still, leaving the foliage almost
undisturbed by its passage.
The most venerable delusion respecting the elephant, and that which held
its ground with unequalled tenacity, is the ancient fallacy which is
explained by SIR THOMAS BROWNE in his _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, that "it
hath no joynts; and this absurdity is seconded by another, that being
unable to lye downe it sleepeth against a tree, which the hunters
observing doe saw almost asunder, whereon the beast relying, by the fall
of the tree falls also downe it-selfe and is able to rise no more."[1]
Sir THOMAS is disposed to think that "the hint and ground of this
opinion might be the grosse and somewhat cylindricall composure of the
legs of the elephant, and the equality and lesse perceptible disposure
of the joynts, especially in the forelegs of this animal, they
appearing, when he standeth, like pillars of flesh;" but he overlooks
the fact that PLINY has ascribed the same peculiarity to the
Scandinavian beast somewhat resembling a horse, which he calls a
"machlis,"[2] and that CÆSAR in describing the wild animals in the
Hercynian forests, enumerates the _alce_, "in colour and configuration
approaching the goat, but surpassing it in size, its head destitute of
horns _and its limbs of joints_, whence it can neither lie down to rest,
nor rise if by any accident it should fall, but using the trees for a
resting-place, the hunters by loosening their roots bring the _alce_ to
the ground, so soon as it is tempted to lean on them."[3] This fallacy,
as Sir THOMAS BROWNE says, is "not the daughter of latter times, but an
old and grey-headed errour, even in the days of ARISTOTLE," who deals
with the story as he received it from CTESIAS, by whom it appears to
have been embodied in his lost work on India. But although ARISTOTLE
generally receives the credit of having exposed and demolished the
fallacy of CTESIAS, it will be seen by a reference to his treatise _On
the Progressive Motions of Animals_, that in reality he approached the
question with some hesitation, and has not only left it doubtful in one
passage whether the elephant has joints _in his knee_, although he
demonstrates that it has joints in the shoulders[4]; but in another he
distinctly affirms that on account of his weight the elephant cannot
bend his forelegs together, but only one at a time, and reclines to
sleep on that particular side.[5]
[Footnote 1: _Vulgar Errors_, book iii. chap. 1.]
[Footnote 2: Machlis (said to be derived from _a_, priv., and [Greek:
klinô], _cubo_, quod non cubat). "Moreover in the island of Scandinavia
there is a beast called _Machlis_, that hath neither ioynt in the hough,
nor pasternes in his hind legs, and therefore he never lieth down, but
sleepeth leaning to a tree, wherefore the hunters that lie in wait for
these beasts cut downe the trees while they are asleepe, and so take
them; otherwise they should never be taken, they are so swift of foot
that it is wonderful."--PLINY, _Natur. Hist._ Transl. Philemon Holland,
book viii. ch. xv. p. 200.]
[Footnote 3: "Sunt item quæ appellantur _Alces_. Harum est consimilis
capreis figura, et varietas pellium; sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt,
mutilæque sunt cornibus, _et crura sine nodis articulisque habent_;
neque quietis causa procumbunt; neque, si quo afflictæ casu considerunt,
erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus; ad
eas sese applicant, atque ita, paulum modo reclinatæ, quietem capiunt,
quarum ex vestigiis cum est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere
consueverint, omnes eo loco, aut a radicibus subruunt aut accidunt
arbores tantum, ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc cum se
consuetudine reclinaverint, infirmas arbores pondere affligunt, atque
una ipsæ concidunt."--CÆSAR, _De Bello Gall_. lib. vi. ch. xxvii.
The same fiction was extended by the early Arabian travellers to the
rhinoceros, and in the MS. of the voyages of the "_Two Mahometans_" it
is stated that the rhinoceros of Sumatra "n'a point d'articulation au
genou ni à la main."--_Relations des Voyages, &c._, Paris, 1845, vol. i.
p. 29.]
[Footnote 4: When an animal moves progressively an hypothenuse is
produced, which is equal in power to the magnitude that is quiescent,
and to that which is intermediate. But since the members are equal, it
is necessary that the member which is quiescent should be inflected
either in the knee or in the incurvation, _if the animal that walks is
without knees_. It is possible, however, for the leg to be moved, when
not inflected, in the same manner as infants creep; and there is an
ancient report of this kind about elephants, which is not true, for such
animals as these, _are moved in consequence of an inflection taking
place either in their shoulders or hips_."--ARISTOTLE, _De Ingressu
Anim._, ch. ix. Taylor's Transl.]
[Footnote 5: ARISTOTLE, _De Animal_., lib. ii. ch. i. It is curious that
Taylor, in his translation of this passage, was so strongly imbued with
the "grey-headed errour," that in order to elucidate the somewhat
obscure meaning of Aristotle, he has actually interpolated the text with
the exploded fallacy of Ctesias, and after the word reclining to sleep,
has inserted the words "_leaning against some wall or tree_," which are
not to be found in the original.]
So great was the authority of ARISTOTLE, that ÆLIAN, who wrote two
centuries later and borrowed many of his statements from the works of
his predecessor, perpetuates this error; and, after describing the
exploits of the trained elephants exhibited at Rome, adds the expression
of his surprise, that an animal without joints ([Greek: anarthron])
should yet be able to dance.[1] The fiction was too agreeable to be
readily abandoned by the poets of the Lower Empire and the Romancers of
the middle ages; and PHILE, a contemporary of PETRARCH and DANTE, who in
the early part of the fourteenth century, addressed his didactic poem on
the elephant to the Emperor Andronicus II., untaught by the exposition
of ARISTOTLE, still clung to the old delusion,
[Greek:
"Podes de toutps thauma kai saphes teras,
Ous, ou kathaper talla tôn zôôn genê,
Eiôthe kinein ex anarthrôn klasmatôn,
Kai gar stibarois syntethentes osteois,
Kai tê pladara tôn sphyrôn katastasei,
Kai tê pros arthra tôn skelôn hypokrisei,
Nyn eis tonous agousi, nyn eis hypheseis,
Tas pantodapas ekdromas tou thêriou.
* * * * *
Brachyterous ontas de ton opisthiôn
'Anamphilektôs oida tous emprosthious
Toutois elephas entatheis osper stylois
'Orthostadên akamptos hypnôttôn menei."]
v. 106, &c.
[Footnote 1: [Greek: "Zpson de anarthron sunienai kai rhuthmou kai
melous, kai phylattein schêma physeôs dôra tauta hama kai idiotês kath'
ekaston ekplêktikê]."--ÆLIAN, _De Nat. Anim_., lib. ii. cap. xi.]
SOLINUS introduced the same fable into his _Polyhistor_; and DICUIL, the
Irish commentator of the ninth century, who had an opportunity of seeing
the elephant sent by Haroun Alraschid as a present to Charlemagne[1] in
the year 802, corrects the error, and attributes its perpetuation to the
circumstance that the joints in the elephant's leg are not very
apparent, except when he lies down.[2]
[Footnote 1: Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, c. xvi. and _Annales Francorum_,
A.D. 810.]
[Footnote 2: "Sed idem Julius, unum de elephantibus mentions, falso
loquitur; dicens elephantem nunquam jacere; dum ille sicut bos
certissime jacet, ut populi communiter regni Francorum elephantem, in
tempore Imperatoris Karoli viderunt. Sed, forsitan, ideo hoc de
elephante ficte æstimando scriptum est, eo quod genua et suffragines sui
nisi quando jacet, non palam apparent."--DICUILUS, _De Mensura Orbis
Terræ_, c. vii.]
It is a strong illustration of the vitality of error, that the delusion
thus exposed by Dicuil in the ninth century, was revived by MATTHEW
PARIS in the thirteenth; and stranger still, that Matthew not only saw
but made a drawing of the elephant presented to King Henry III. by the
King of France in 1255, in which he nevertheless represents the legs as
without joints.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Cotton MSS_. NERO. D. 1. fol. 168, b.]
In the numerous mediæval treatises on natural history, known under the
title of _Bestiaries_, this delusion regarding the elephant is often
repeated; and it is given at length in a metrical version of the
_Physiologus_ of THEOBALDUS, amongst the Arundel Manuscripts in the
British Museum.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Arundel MSS_. No. 292, fol. 4, &c. It has been printed in
the _Reliquiæ Antiquæ_, vol. i. p. 208, by Mr. WRIGHT, to whom I am
indebted for the following rendering of the passage referred to:--
in water ge sal stonden
in water to mid side
that wanne hire harde tide
that ge ne falle nither nogt
that it most in hire thogt
for he ne haven no lith
that he mugen risen with, etc.
"They will stand in the water,
in water up to the middle of the side,
that when it comes to them hard,
they may not fall down:
that is most in their thought,
for they have no joint
to enable them to rise again.
How he resteth him this animal,
when he walketh abroad,
hearken how it is here told.
For he is all unwieldy,
forsooth he seeks out a tree,
that it strong and stedfast,
and leans confidently against it,
when he is weary of walking.
The hunter has observed this,
who seeks to ensnare him,
where his usual dwelling is,
to do his will;
saws this tree and props it
in the manner that he best may,
covers it well that he (the elephant) may not be on his guard.
Then he makes thereby a seat,
himself sits alone and watches
whether his trap takes effect.
Then cometh this unwieldy elephant,
and leans him on his side,
rests against the tree in the shadow,
and so both fall together.
If nobody be by when he falls,
he roars ruefully and calls for help,
roars ruefully in his manner,
hopes he shall through help rise.
Then cometh there one (elephant) in haste,
hopes he shall cause him to stand up;
labours and tries all his might,
but he cannot succeed a bit.
He knows then no other remedy,
but roars with his brother,
many and large (elephants) come there in search,
thinking to make him get up,
but for the help of them all
he may not get up.
Then they all roar one roar,
like the blast of a horn or the sound of bell,
for their great roaring
a young one cometh running,
stoops immediately to him,
puts his snout under him,
and asks the help of them all;
this elephant they raise on his legs:
and thus fails this hunter's trick,
in the manner that I have told you."]
With the Provençal song writers, the helplessness of the fallen elephant
was a favourite simile, and amongst others RICHARD DE BARBEZIEUX, in the
latter half of the twelfth century, sung[1],
"Atressi cum l'olifans
Que quan chai no s'pot levar."
[Footnote 1: One of the most venerable authorities by whom the fallacy
was transmitted to modern times was PHILIP de THAUN, who wrote, about
the year 1121, A.D., his _Livre des Créatures_, dedicated to Adelaide of
Louvaine, Queen of Henry I. of England. In the copy of it printed by the
Historical Society of Science in 1841, and edited by Mr. WRIGHT, the
following passage occurs:--
"Et Ysidre nus dit ki le elefant descrit,
* * * * *
Es jambes par nature nen ad que une jointure,
Il ne pot pas gesir quant il se volt dormir,
Ke si cuchet estait par sei nen leveraît;
Pur ceo li stot apuier, el lui del cucher,
U à arbre u à mur, idunc dort aseur.
E le gent de la terre, ki li volent conquere,
Li mur enfunderunt, u le arbre encíserunt;
Quant li elefant vendrat, ki s'i apuierat,
La arbre u le mur carrat, e il tribucherat;
Issi faiterement le parnent cele gent."
P. 100.]
As elephants were but rarely seen in Europe prior to the seventeenth
century, there were but few opportunities of correcting the popular
fallacy by ocular demonstration. Hence SHAKSPEARE still believed that,
"The elephant hath joints; but none for courtesy:
His legs are for necessity, not flexure:"[1]
and DONNE sang of
"Nature's great masterpiece, an Elephant;
The only harmless great thing:
Yet Nature hath given him no knee to bend:
Himself he up-props, on himself relies;
Still sleeping stands."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Troilus and Cressida_, act ii. sc. 3. A.D. 1609.]
[Footnote 2: _Progress of the Soul_, A.D. 1633.]
Sir THOMAS BROWNE, while he argues against the delusion, does not fail
to record his suspicion, that "although the opinion at present be
reasonably well suppressed, yet from the strings of tradition and
fruitful recurrence of errour, it was not improbable it might revive in
the next generation;"[1]--an anticipation which has proved singularly
correct; for the heralds still continued to explain that the elephant is
the emblem of watchfulness, "_nec jacet in somno,"_[2] and poets almost
of our own times paint the scene when
"Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade on Niger's yellow stream,
Or where the Ganges rolls his sacred waves,
_Leans_ the huge Elephant."[3]
[Footnote 1: Sir T. BROWNE, _Vulgar Errors_, A.D. 1646.]
[Footnote 2: RANDAL HOME'S _Academy of Armory_, A.D. 1671. HOME
only perpetuated the error of GUILLAM, who wrote his _Display of
Heraldry_ in A.D. 1610; wherein he explains that the elephant is
"so proud of his strength that he never bows himself to any
(_neither indeed can he_), and when he is once down he cannot
rise up again."--Sec. III. ch. xii. p. 147.]
[Footnote 3: THOMSON'S _Seasons_, A.D. 1728.]
It is not difficult to see whence this antiquated delusion took its
origin; nor is it, as Sir THOMAS BROWNE imagined, to be traced
exclusively "to the grosse and cylindricall structure" of the animal's
legs. The fact is, that the elephant, returning in the early morning
from his nocturnal revels in the reservoirs and water-courses, is
accustomed to rub his muddy sides against a tree, and sometimes
against a rock if more convenient. In my rides through the northern
forests, the natives of Ceylon have often pointed out that the
elephants which had preceded me must have been of considerable size,
from the height at which their marks had been left on the trees
against which they had been rubbing. Not unfrequently the animals
themselves, overcome with drowsiness from the night's gambolling, are
found dosing and resting against the trees they had so visited, and in
the same manner they have been discovered by sportsmen asleep, and
leaning against a rock.
It is scarcely necessary to explain that the position is accidental, and
that it is taken by the elephant not from any difficulty in lying at
length on the ground, but rather from the coincidence that the structure
of his legs affords such support in a standing position, that reclining
scarcely adds to his enjoyment of repose; and elephants in a state of
captivity have been known for months together to sleep without lying
down.[1] So distinctive is this formation, and so self-sustaining the
configuration of the limbs, that an elephant shot in the brain, by Major
Rogers in 1836, was killed so instantaneously that it died literally _on
its knees_, and remained resting on them. About the year 1826, Captain
Dawson, the engineer of the great road to Kandy, over the Kaduganava
pass, shot an elephant at Hangwelle on the banks of the Kalany Ganga;
_it remained on its feet_, but so motionless, that after discharging a
few more balls, he was induced to go close to it, and found it dead.
[Footnote 1: So little is the elephant inclined to lie down in
captivity, and even after hard labour, that the keepers are generally
disposed to suspect illness when he betakes himself to this posture.
PHILE, in his poem _De Animalium Proprietate_, attributes the propensity
of the elephant to sleep on his legs, to the difficulty he experiences
in rising to his feet:
[Greek:
'Orthostadên de kai katheudei panychos
'HOt ouk anastêsai men eucherôs pelei.]
But this is a misapprehension.]
The real peculiarity in the elephant in lying down is, that he extends
his hind legs backwards as a man does when he kneels, instead of
bringing them under him like the horse or any other quadruped. The wise
purpose of this arrangement must be obvious to any one who observes the
struggle with which the horse _gets up_ from the ground, and the violent
efforts which he makes to raise himself erect. Such an exertion in the
case of the elephant, and the force requisite to apply a similar
movement to raise his weight (equal to four or five tons) would be
attended with a dangerous strain upon the muscles, and hence the simple
arrangement, which by enabling him to draw the hind feet gradually under
him, assists him to rise without a perceptible effort.