captive down to the river between two tame ones. This was effected very
simply. A decoy, with a strong collar round its neck, stood on either
side of the wild one, on which a similar collar was formed, by
successive coils of coco-nut rope; and then, connecting the three
collars together, the prisoner was effectually made safe between his two
guards. During this operation, it was curious to see how the tame
elephant, from time to time, used its trunk to shield the arm of its
rider, and ward off the trunk of the prisoner, who resisted the placing
the rope round his neck. This done, the nooses were removed from his
feet, and he was marched off to the river, in which he and his
companions were allowed to bathe; a privilege of which all availed
themselves eagerly. Each was then made fast to a tree in the forest, and
keepers being assigned to him, with a retinue of leaf-cutters, he was
plentifully supplied with his favourite food, and left to the care and
tuition of his new masters.
Returning from a spectacle such as I have attempted to describe, one
cannot help feeling how immeasurably it exceeds in interest those royal
battues where timid deer are driven in crowds to unresisting slaughter;
or those vaunted "wild sports" the amusement of which appears to be in
proportion to the effusion of blood. Here the only display of power was
the imposition of restraint; and though considerable mortality often
occurs amongst the animals caught, the infliction of pain, so far from
being an incident of the operation, is most cautiously avoided from its
tendency to enrage, the policy of the captor being to conciliate and
soothe. The whole scene exhibits the most marvellous example of the
voluntary alliance of animal sagacity and instinct in active
co-operation with human intelligence and courage; and nothing else in
nature, not even the chase of the whale, can afford so vivid an
illustration of the sovereignty of man over brute creation even when
confronted with force in its most stupendous embodiment.
Of the two young elephants which were taken in the corral, the smallest
was sent down to my house at Colombo, where he became a general
favourite with the servants. He attached himself especially to the
coachman, who had a little shed erected for him near his own quarters at
the stables. But his favourite resort was the kitchen, where he received
a daily allowance of milk and plantains, and picked up several other
delicacies besides. He was innocent and playful in the extreme, and when
walking in the grounds he would trot up to me, twine his little trunk
round my arm, and coax me to take him to the fruit-trees. In the evening
the grass-cutters now and then indulged him by permitting him to carry
home a load of fodder for the horses, on which occasions he assumed an
air of gravity that was highly amusing, showing that he was deeply
impressed with the importance and responsibility of the service
entrusted to him. Being sometimes permitted to enter the dining-room,
and helped to fruit at desert, he at last learned his way to the
side-board; and on more than one occasion having stolen in, during the
absence of the servants, he made a clear sweep of the wine-glasses and
china in his endeavours to reach a basket of oranges. For these and
similar pranks we were at last forced to put him away. He was sent to
the Government stud, where he was affectionately received and adopted by
Siribeddi, and he now takes his turn of public duty in the department of
the Commissioner of Roads.
CHAP. VII.
THE ELEPHANT.
* * * * *
_Conduct in Captivity._
The idea prevailed in ancient times, and obtains even at the present
day, that the Indian elephant surpasses that of Africa in sagacity and
tractability, and consequently in capacity for training, so as to render
its services more available to man. There does not appear to me to be
sufficient ground for this conclusion. It originated, in all
probability, in the first impressions created by the accounts of the
elephant brought back by the Greeks after the Indian expedition of
Alexander, and above all by the descriptions of Aristotle, whose
knowledge of the animal was derived exclusively from the East. A long
interval elapsed before the elephant of Africa, and its capabilities,
became known in Europe. The first elephants brought to Greece by
Antipater, were from India, as were also those introduced by Pyrrhus
into Italy. Taught by this example, the Carthaginians undertook to
employ African elephants in war. Jugurtha led them against Metellus, and
Juba against Cæsar; but from inexperienced and deficient training, they
proved less effective than the elephants of India[1], and the historians
of these times ascribed to inferiority of race, that which was but the
result of insufficient education.
[Footnote 1: ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Eléphants_, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2.
It is an interesting fact, noticed by ARMANDI, that the elephants
figured on the coins of Alexander, and the Seleucidæ invariably exhibit
the characteristics of the Indian type, whilst those on Roman medals can
at once be pronounced African, from the peculiarities of the convex
forehead and expansive ears.--_Ibid_. liv. i. cap. i. p. 3.
[Illustration]
ARMANDI has, with infinite industry, collected from original sources a
mass of curious informations relative to the employment of elephants in
ancient warfare, which he has published under the title of _Histoire
Militaire des Eléphants depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu' à
l'introduction des armes a feu_. Paris. 1843.]
It must, however, be remembered that the elephants which, at a later
period, astonished the Romans by their sagacity, and whose performances
in the amphitheatre have been described by Ælian and Pliny, were brought
from Africa, and acquired their accomplishments from European
instructors[1]; a sufficient proof that under equally favourable
auspices the African species are capable of developing similar docility
and powers with those of India. It is one of the facts from which the
inferiority of the Negro race has been inferred, that they alone, of all
the nations amongst whom the elephant is found, have never manifested
ability to domesticate it; and even as regards the more highly developed
races who inhabited the valley of the Nile, it is observable that the
elephant is nowhere to be found amongst the animals figured on the
monuments of ancient Egypt, whilst the camelopard, the lion, and even
the hippopotamus are represented. And although in later times the
knowledge of the art of training appears to have existed under the
Ptolemies, and on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, it admits of
no doubt that it was communicated by the more accomplished natives of
India who had settled there.[2]
[Footnote 1: ÆLIAN, lib. ii. cap. ii.]
[Footnote 2: See SCHLEGEL'S Essay on the Elephant and the Sphynx.
_Classical Journal_, No. lx. Although the trained elephant nowhere
appears upon the monuments of the Egyptians, the animal was not unknown
to them, and ivory and elephants are figured on the walls of Thebes and
Karnac amongst the spoils of Thothmes III., and the tribute paid to
Rameses I. The Island of Elephantine, in the Nile, near Assouan (Syene)
is styled in hieroglyphical writing "The Land of the Elephant;" but as
it is a mere rock, it probably owes its designation to its form. See Sir
GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. i. pl. iv.; vol. v. p.
176. Above the first cataract of the Nile are two small islands, each
bearing the name of Phylæ;--quære, is the derivation of this word at all
connected with the Arabic term _fil_? See ante, p. 76, note. The
elephant figured in the sculptures of Nineveh is universally as wild,
not domesticated.]
Another favourite doctrine of the earlier visitors to the East seems to
me to be equally fallacious; PYRARD, BERNIER, PHILLIPE, THEVENOT, and
other travellers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, proclaimed
the superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, in size, strength, and
sagacity, above those of all other parts of India[1]; and TAVERNIER in
particular is supposed to have stated that if a Ceylon elephant be
introduced amongst those bred in any other place, by an instinct of
nature they do him homage by laying their trunks to the ground, and
raising them reverentially. This passage has been so repeatedly quoted
in works on Ceylon that it has passed into an aphorism, and is always
adduced as a testimony to the surpassing intelligence of the elephants
of that island; although a reference to the original shows that
Tavernier's observations are not only fanciful in themselves, but are
restricted to the supposed excellence of the Ceylon animal _in war_.[2]
This estimate of the superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, if it ever
prevailed in India, was not current there at a very early period; for in
the _Ramayana_, which is probably the oldest epic in the world, the stud
of Dasartha, the king of Ayodhya, was supplied with elephants from the
Himalaya and the Vindhya Mountains.[3] I have had no opportunity of
testing by personal observation the justice of the assumption; but from
all that I have heard of the elephants of the continent, and seen of
those of Ceylon, I have reason to conclude that the difference, if not
imaginary, is exceptional, and must have arisen in particular and
individual instances, from more judicious or elaborate instruction.
[Footnote 1: This is merely a reiteration of the statement of ÆLIAN, who
ascribes to the elephants of Taprobane a vast superiority in size,
strength, and intelligence, above, those of continental India,--[Greek:
"Kai oide ge næsiotai elephantes ton hæpiroton halkimoteroi te tæn
rhomæn kai meixous idein eisi, kai thumosophoteroi de panta pantæ
krinointo han."]--ÆLIAN, _De Nat. Anim_., lib. Xvi. Cap. xviii.
ÆLIAN also, in the same chapter, states the fact of the shipment of
elephants in large boats from Ceylon to the opposite continent of India,
for sale to the king of Kalinga; so that the export from Manaar,
described in a former passage, has been going on apparently without
interruption since the time of the Romans.]
[Footnote 2: The expression of TAVERNIER is to the effect that as
compared with all others, the elephants of Ceylon are "plus courageux _à
la guerre_." The rest of the passage is a curiosity:--
"Il faut remarquer ici une chose qu'on aura peut-être de la peine à
croire main quit est toutefois très-véritable: c'est que lorsque quelque
roi on quelque seigneur a quelqu'un de ces éléphants de Ceylan, et qu'on
en amène quelqu'autre des lieux où les marchands vont les prendre, comme
d'Achen, de Siam, d'Arakan, de Pegu, du royáume de Boutan, d'Assam, des
terres de Cochin et de la coste du Mélinde, dés que les éléphants en
voient un de Ceylan, par un instinct de nature, ils lui font la
révérence, portant le bout de leur trompe à la terre et la relevant. Il
est vrai que les éléphants que les grand seigneurs entretiennent, quand
en les amine devant eux, pour voir s'ils sent en bon point, font troi
fois une espére de révérence avec leur troupe, _a que j'ai en souvent_,
mais ils sont stylés à cela, et leurs maitres le leur enseignent de
bonne heure."--_Les Six Voyages de_ J.B. TAVERNIER, lib. iii. ch. 20.]
[Footnote 3: _Ramayana_, sec. vi.: CAREY and MARSHMAN, i. 105: FAUCHE,
t. i. p. 66.]
The earliest knowledge of the elephant in Europe and the West, was
derived from the conspicuous position assigned to it in the wars of the
East: in India, from the remotest antiquity, it formed one of the most
picturesque, if not the most effective, features in the armies of the
native princes.[1] It is more than probable that the earliest attempts
to take and train the elephant, were with a view to military uses, and
that the art was perpetuated in later times to gratify the pride of the
eastern kings, and sustain the pomp of their processions.
[Footnote 1: The only mention of the elephant in Sacred History in the
account given in _Maccabees_ of the invasion of Egypt by Antiochus, who
entered it 170 B.C., "with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a
great navy."--1 _Macc_. i. 17. Frequent allusions to the use of
elephants in war occur in both books: and in chap. vi. 34, it is stated
that "to provoke the elephants to fight they showed them the blood of
grapes and of mulberries." The term showed, "[Greek: edeixan]," might be
thought to imply that the animals were enraged by the sight of the wine
and its colour, but in the Third Book of Maccabees, in the Greek
Septuagint, various other passages show that wine, on such occasions,
was administered to the elephants to render them furious.--Mace, v. 2.
10, 45. PHILE mentions the same fact, _De Elephante_, i. 145.
There is a very curious account of the mode in which the Arab conquerors
of Seinde, in the 9th and 10th centuries, equipped the elephant for war;
which being written with all the particularity of an eye-witness, bears
the impress of truth and accuracy. MASSOUDI, who was born in Bagdad at
the close of the 9th century, travelled in India in the year A.D. 913,
and visited the Gulf of Cambay, the coast of Malabar, and the Island of
Ceylon:--from a larger account of his journeys he compiled a summary
under the title of "_Moroudj al-dzeheb," or the "Golden Meadows_," the
MS. of which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. M. REINAUD, in
describing this manuscript says on its authority, "The Prince of
Mensura, whose dominions lay south of the Indus, maintained eighty
elephants trained for war, each of which bore in his trunk a bent
cymeter (carthel), with which he was taught to cut and thrust at all
confronting him. The trunk itself was effectually protected by a coat of
mail, and the rest of the body enveloped in a covering composed jointly
of iron and horn. Other elephants were employed in drawing chariots,
carrying baggage, and grinding forage, and the performance of all
bespoke the utmost intelligence and docility."--REINAUD, _Mèmoires sur
l'Inde, antérieurement au milieu du XIe siècle, d'après les écrivains
arabes, persans et chinois_. Paris, M.D.CCC. XLIX. p. 215. See
SPRENGER'S English Translation of Massoudi, vol. i. p. 383.]
An impression prevails even to the present day, that the process of
training is tedious and difficult, and the reduction of a full-grown
elephant to obedience, slow and troublesome in the extreme.[1] In both
particulars, however, the contrary is the truth. The training as it
prevails in Ceylon is simple, and the conformity and obedience of the
animal are developed with singular rapidity. For the first three days,
or till they will eat freely, which they seldom do in a less time, the
newly-captured elephants are allowed to stand quiet; and, if
practicable, a tame elephant is tied near to give the wild ones
confidence. Where many elephants are being trained at once, it is
customary to put every new captive between the stalls of half-tamed
ones, when it soon takes to its food. This stage being attained,
training commences by placing tame elephants on either side. The
"cooroowe vidahn," or the head of the stables, stands in front of the
wild elephants holding a long stick with a sharp iron point. Two men are
then stationed one on either side, assisted by the tame elephants, and
each holding a _hendoo_ or crook[2] towards the wild one's trunk, whilst
one or two others rub their hands over his back, keeping up all the
while a soothing and plaintive chaunt, interlarded with endearing
epithets, such as "ho! my son," or "ho! my father," or "my mother," as
may be applicable to the age and sex of the captive. The elephant is at
first furious, and strikes in all directions with his trunk; but the men
in front receiving all these blows on the points of their weapons, the
extremity of the trunk becomes so sore that the animal curls it up
close, and seldom afterwards attempts to use it offensively. The first
dread of man's power being thus established, the process of taking him
to bathe between two tame elephants is greatly facilitated, and by
lengthening the neck rope, and drawing the feet together as close as
possible, the process of laying him down in the water is finally
accomplished by the keepers pressing the sharp point of their hendoos
over the backbone.
[Footnote 1: BRODERIP, _Zoological Recreations_, p. 226.]
[Footnote 2: The iron goad with which the keeper directs the movements
of the elephants, called a _hendoo_ in Ceylon and _hawkus_ in Bengal,
appears to have retained the present shape from the remotest antiquity.
It is figured in the medals of Caracalla in the identical form in which
it is in use at the present day in India.
The Greeks called it [Greek: harpê], and the Romans _cuspis_.
[Illustration: Medal of Numidia.]
[Illustration: Modern Hendoo.]]
For many days the roaring and resistance which attend the operation are
considerable, and it often requires the sagacious interference of the
tame elephants to control the refractory wild ones. It soon, however,
becomes practicable to leave the latter alone, only taking them to and
from the stall by the aid of a decoy. This step lasts, under ordinary
treatment, for about three weeks, when an elephant may be taken alone
with his legs hobbled, and a man walking backwards in front with the
point of the hendoo always presented to the elephant's head, and a
keeper with an iron crook at each ear. On getting into the water, the
fear of being pricked on his tender back induces him to lie down
directly on the crook being only held over him _in terrorem_. Once this
point has been achieved, the further process of taming is dependent upon
the disposition of the creature.
The greatest care is requisite, and daily medicines are applied to heal
the fearful wounds on the legs which even the softest ropes occasion.
This is the great difficulty of training; for the wounds fester
grievously, and months and sometimes years will elapse before an
elephant will allow his feet to be touched without indications of alarm
and anger.
The observation has been frequently made that the elephants most vicious
and troublesome to tame, and the most worthless when tamed, are those
distinguished by a thin trunk and flabby pendulous ears. The period of
tuition does not appear to be influenced by the size or strength of the
animals: some of the smallest give the greatest amount of trouble;
whereas, in the instance of the two largest that have been taken in
Ceylon within the last thirty years, both were docile in a remarkable
degree. One in particular, which was caught and trained by Mr. Cripps,
when Government agent, in the Seven Korles, fed from the hand the first
night it was secured, and in a very few days evinced pleasure on being
patted on the head.[1] There is none so obstinate, not even a _rogue_,
that may not, when kindly and patiently treated, be conciliated and
reconciled.
[Footnote 1: This was the largest elephant that had been tamed in
Ceylon; he measured upwards of nine feet at the shoulders and belonged
to the caste so highly prized for the temples. He was gentle after his
first capture, but his removal from the corral to the stables, though
only a distance of six miles, was a matter of the extremest difficulty;
his extraordinary strength rendering him more than a match for the
attendant decoys. He, on one occasion, escaped, but was recaptured in
the forest; and he afterwards became so docile as to perform a variety
of tricks. He was at length ordered to be removed to Colombo; but such
was his terror on approaching the gate, that on coaxing him to enter the
gate, he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to,
and _died on the spot_.]
The males are generally more unmaneagable than the females, and in both
an inclination to lie down to rest is regarded as a favourable symptom
of approaching tractability, some of the most resolute having been known
to stand for months together, even during sleep. Those which are the
most obstinate and violent at first are the soonest and most effectually
subdued, and generally prove permanently docile and submissive. But
those which are sullen or morose, although they may provoke no
chastisement by their viciousness, are always slower in being taught,
and are rarely to be trusted in after life.[1]
[Footnote 1: The natives profess that the high caste elephants, such as
are allotted to the temples, are of all others the most difficult to
tame, and M. BLES, the Dutch correspondent of BUFFON, mentions a caste
of elephants which he had heard of, as being peculiar to the Kandyan
kingdom, that were not higher than a heifer (génisse), covered with
hair, and insusceptible of being tamed. (BUFFON, _Supp._ vol. vi. p.
29.) Bishop HEBER, in the account of his journey from Bareilly towards
the Himalayas, describes the Raja Gourman Sing, "mounted on a little
female elephant, hardly bigger than a Durham ox, and almost as shaggy as
a poodle."--_Journx._, ch. xvii. It will be remembered that the mammoth
discovered in 1803 embedded in icy soil in Siberia, was covered with a
coat of long hair, with a sort of wool at the roots. Hence there arose
the question whether that northern region had been formerly inhabited by
a race of elephants, so fortified by nature against cold; or whether the
individual discovered had been borne thither by currents from some more
temperate latitudes. To the latter theory the presence of hair seemed a
fatal objection; but so far as my own observation goes, I believe the
elephants are more or less provided with hair. In some it is more
developed than in others, and it is particularly observable in the
young, which when captured are frequently covered with a woolly fleece,
especially about the head and shoulders. In the older individuals in
Ceylon, this is less apparent: and in captivity the hair appears to be
altogether removed by the custom of the mahouts to rub their skin daily
with oil and a rough lump of burned clay. See a paper on the subject,
_Asiat. Journ._ N.S. vol. xiv. p. 182, by Mr. G. FAIRHOLME.]
But whatever may be its natural gentleness and docility, the temper of
an elephant is seldom to be implicitly relied on in a state of captivity
and coercion. The most amenable are subject to occasional fits of
stubbornness; and even after years of submission, irritability and
resentment will unaccountably manifest themselves. It may be that the
restraints and severer discipline of training have not been entirely
forgotten; or that incidents which in ordinary health would be
productive of no demonstration whatever, may lead, in moments of
temporary illness, to fretfulness and anger. The knowledge of this
infirmity led to the popular belief recorded by PHILE, that the elephant
had _two hearts_, under the respective influences of which it evinced
ferocity of gentleness; subdued by the one to habitual tractability and
obedience, but occasionally roused by the other to displays of rage and
resistance.[1]
[Footnote 1:
[Greek:
"Diplês de phasin euporêsai kardias
Kai tê men einai thumikon to thêrion
Eis akratê kinêsin êrethismenon,
Tê de prosênes kai thrasytêtos xenon.
Kai pê men autôn akroasthai ton logôn
Ous an tis Indos eu tithaseuôn legoi,
Pê de pros autous tous nomeis epitrechein
Eis tas palaias ektrapen kakoupgias."]
PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph._, l. 126, &c.]
In the process of taming, the presence of the tame ones can generally be
dispensed with after two months, and the captive may then be ridden by
the driver alone; and after three or four months he may be entrusted
with labour, so far as regards docility;--but it is undesirable, and
even involves the risk of life, to work an elephant too soon; it has
frequently happened that a valuable animal has lain down and died the
first time it was tried in harness, from what the natives believe to be
"broken heart,"--certainly without any cause inferable from injury or
previous disease.[1] It is observable, that till a captured elephant
begins to relish food, and grow fat upon it, he becomes so fretted by
work, that it kills him in an incredibly short space of time.
[Footnote 1: Captain YULE, in his _Narrative of an Embassy to Ava in_
1855, records an illustration of this tendency of the elephant to sudden
death; one newly captured, the process of taming which was exhibited to
the British Envoy, "made vigorous resistance to the placing of a collar
on its neck, and the people were proceeding to tighten it, when the
elephant, which had lain down as if quite exhausted, reared suddenly on
the hind quarters, and fell on its side--_dead_!"--P. 104.