OF ELEPHANTS
"The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant,
The saplings reeling in the path he trod,
Declare his might,--our lord the elephant,
Chief of the ways of God.
"The black bulk heaving where the oxen pant,
The bowed head toiling where the guns careen,
Declare our might,--our slave the elephant,
The servant of the Queen."
R. K.
[Illustration: FROM THE SANCHI TOPE]
The Elephant has always been one of the wonders of the world, amazing in
his aspect and full of delightful and surprising qualities. Nor does
familiarity lessen his hold upon the imagination of mankind. Next after the
cow he seems to be of all the beasts the Hindu favourite. At the present
moment the most carefully-kept studs of Elephants are in the hands of Hindu
Rajas, and the Muhammadan Nawāb prefers the horse. This is an ancient
predilection on the part of the Hindu. While other animals represented in
Hindu Art are merely decorative and conventional, or awkward and
ill-understood, there is invariably a strong feeling for nature in Hindu
elephant sculptures and paintings. The contrast may be noticed in most old
temples, but especially in the sculptured gates or tori of the Sanchi tope
in Central India, where all kinds of animals are shown, but the elephant
alone is carved with complete knowledge, and unvarying truth of action.
The grave beast is as great a favourite of the poet as of the artist. The
back view of the elephant as he shuffles along, is like nothing so much as
that of the stout and elderly "long-shore" fisherman and sailor of our
English watering-places, whose capacious nether garments, alone among human
habiliments, have the horizontally creased bagginess peculiar to the
elephant. Dickens said long ago that the elephant employs the worst tailor
in all the world. But these wrinkled columns suggest feminine grace to the
Oriental poet, and "elephant-gaited" is the supreme and also the invariable
expression for the voluptuous movements of women: "A voice as sweet as that
of the Koil, and a gait as voluptuous as that of the elephant: An eye like
the antelope's, a waist like the lion's, and a gait like the elephant's,"
are specimens of an endless series of descriptions of female beauty. Nor
are these expressions confined to ancient poetry, for they are as current
to-day as ever they were. Walking behind elephants and women, I have
occasionally seen a hint of the poet's meaning, but only a hint; and one
is driven to the conclusion that the simile, like many more in Oriental
verse, is mainly conventional. The beast gets along so quietly he might
almost be said to glide, but his movements have little of the fine rhythmic
swing and poise one sees in the noble gait of a well-formed Hindu woman.
[Illustration: GANÉSHA (FROM AN ANCIENT HINDU SCULPTURE)]
As furnishing a head to Ganésa, Ganésh, or Ganpati, the wise and humorous
god who is invoked at the beginning of all enterprises, whose auspicious
image is placed over most Hindu doorways, and whose mystic sign (familiarly
spoken of as a Ganésh) stands on the first page of Hindu ledgers and
day-books, the elephant has an immense hold on the affections of the
people. His sign 卍 is the _svastika_, the cross fylfot of our Western
heraldry and the hermetic cross of Freemasonry, traceable from Troy town to
China. The traveller and the pilgrim look to Ganésha for protection, the
merchant for fortune, the student for advancement, and the housewife for
luck.
[Illustration: SHIV OR MAHADEO, WITH THE INFANT GANÉSH (FROM AN INDIAN
LITHOGRAPH)]
The popular version of the origin of Ganésha is that during one of the
absences of the great Lord Shiva, Parbati his wife, taking a bath, rubbed
some tiny pellets off her skin and amused herself by moulding them into the
form of a child, till at last she breathed life into it. Shiva returned and
was outraged to find a baby where no baby should be, so he promptly cut off
its head with his sharp war-quoit. Then Parbati explained and Shiva said in
effect: "Dear me! this is very sad, why did not you speak sooner?" Then,
catching sight of an elephant standing near, he cut off its head and
clapped it on the decapitated baby. "Now, it's all right!" said he, "I was
always rather hasty." And, to make amends, he ordained that in every
enterprise Ganésa's name should be the first called upon. So the elephant's
head grew on the God-like body, that is to say, on the corpulent body of a
well-fed Baniya, who in his four hands bears suitable emblems,--a disc or
war-quoit, sometimes interpreted as a cake, an elephant goad, a
sacrificial shell, and a lotus. His seat is a lotus, and his steed or vâhan
a rat. In this state he sits over thousands of Hindu doors. His effigy is
modelled in clay and gaily painted for most Hindu households in Western
India, and on his great feast-day, after four days' worship, thousands of
such effigies are borne with shouting and rejoicing to be thrown into the
sea or the nearest water. If Ganésha stood he would be the very image of
many fat, rupee-worshipping Baniyas, to be seen all over India,--even
as--with some irreverence--I have ventured to draw him. But he never
stands, though a fat man is often spoken of as a "cow-dung Ganésh."
Although at first sight merely monstrous to Western eyes, this quaint
personage grows in interest as one learns his attributes and becomes
familiar with his character and person. He seems, as he sits meditatively
poising his heavy head, to be the Nick Bottom of the Hindu Pantheon, with a
touch of the jovial humour immemorially associated with fat men. Like
Falstaff, he appears to chuckle over his bulk and to say, "I cannot tell
whether it is the weight of my head or of my belly (in Southern India he is
familiarly known as the belly God) that prevents my rising, but here I sit
and survey mankind with cheery geniality." Campbell in his "Pleasures of
Hope" speaks of "Ganésa sublime," which to those who know him for what he
is,--the sagacious and respectable "God of getting on"--is a deliciously
incongruous epithet and a false quantity besides.
[Illustration: IF GANÉSHA STOOD]
He is mixed up in countryside stories with mere human creatures in a
friendly fashion which shows that he is a popular favourite. Thus, once
upon a time Shiva and Parbati were strolling about on the earth, and they
visited a temple of Shiva, in the precincts of which sat a poor beggar-man
asking for alms. Parbati said to her awful husband, "It is really too bad
that this man, who has been begging here for years in your name, should not
be better provided for. I call it discreditable." They passed, wrangling,
into the court of the temple till Shiva impatiently cried: "Ho! Ganésha."
The voice of Ganésha came from the inside--"Ho!" "Let something be done for
the tiresome beggar-man your mother has been bothering me about!" "Very
good; I will see that he has a lakh of rupees within the next three days."
"That will do," said the great Mahadeo, and he passed away with his
quarrelsome wife. Now, while they were talking, a Hindu Baniya (dealer and
money-lender) was standing hidden behind the pillars, and though nearly
frightened to death, he cast about in his greedy mind how to secure that
lakh of rupees. So he went to the unconscious beggar, sitting in the outer
court, and asked about his earnings. "My earnings are nothing," said the
beggar, "sometimes a copper or two, sometimes only cowries, sometimes a
handful of rice or pulse;--nothing." Pretending to be interested in the
matter from mere curiosity, the usurer offered five rupees for all the
beggar earned during the next three days. Startled by this large sum, the
beggar held back, protesting the Baniya would be a loser, whereupon more
were offered. The talk went on in the dawdling inconclusive way that only
those who have tried to strike a bargain in India can understand, till
finally the beggar insisted on consulting his wife. As frequently happens
in Indian stories, as in Indian life, she was a very clever woman: "Depend
upon it that usurer is after no good; offered you fifty rupees, did he?
Then it's worth more than fifty times as much. God knows how, but that's
not our affair. Go back and don't give over bargaining even if you go as
high as half a lakh of rupees."
The beggar went back and the bargain began again, and was finally closed at
half a lakh of rupees, which were duly brought to the wondering mendicant.
The usurer hung round the temple, anxious to see how Ganésha would bestow
the lakh of rupees on the beggar-man. At last he heard the approach of the
Gods, and as they passed the beggar, the mother of Death and Life asked
Shiva if anything had been done for him. Again Ganésha was summoned, and as
Shiva spoke, the great stone threshold of the temple rose from its place
and jammed the trembling usurer's leg against the wall. Said Ganésha--"It
is all right! the beggar has received half of the promised lakh of rupees,
and I've got the man who owes him the other half fast by the leg here, and
he will not be released till he has paid the uttermost farthing."
Then that covetous one's liver was turned to water, for he knew that he who
owes to the Gods must pay.
When a native storyteller repeats a triviality of this kind, one seems to
see the belly-god asleep in the dusk of the temple and to hear the rustle
of his dry trunk uncoiling as he awakes, the jovial carelessness of his
voice echoing in the carved vaults and roof, and his chuckle of
satisfaction as the usurer is caught.
There is no trace of the humorous and friendly vulgarity by which Ganésha
the elephant-headed and Hanumān, the monkey god, are distinguished among
the Gods of the Vedas, where the clouds sail high; while the comparative
rarity of their sculptures in the older temples shows that they had at
first but a small share in official mythology.
Here it may be worth while to say of the popular impression that the Vedas
are text-books of Hinduism, that it is incorrect. Most educated Hindus talk
of the Vedas, and modern Hindu reformers, like Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chandra
Sen, and Dayanand Saraswati, insisted that the Vedas contain the elements
of all the religion the world can want; but to whip a dead horse with deep
emotion and lively faith does not necessarily bring it to life again, and
the Vedas have been dead for centuries. Their literary resurrection is part
of the revival of Oriental Scholarship brought about by European Scholars
such as Colebrooke and his many successors. It has been said by a competent
authority that nine hundred and ninety-nine of every thousand Hindus know
nothing about them, and that they are not Hindu in any real sense.
In the earliest myths the elephant is said to take the place of thunder and
lightning, and is one of the steeds of Indra, but while horses and cows
are perpetually referred to, mentions of the elephant are comparatively
rare. The Solar Garuda still survives--(the Brahminy kite is called a
garuda in Southern India),--and he carries an elephant in his beak as in
the Hindu epics. The ancient fantasy that four elephants support the four
corners of the earth is still alive, and they are thus represented in
mystic diagrams printed and painted on calico for Hindu Jogis. Pictures and
sculptures of the goddess Lakshmi show her seated while elephants pour
water over her head from vases upheld in their trunks. It seems fair to
conclude that though the elephant was a favourite of the earlier poets, he
came late to his present high place in the celestial company through the
side door of popular liking. It is also possible that he was admitted late
because he was unknown to the earliest writers.
Buddhism, now dead and done with as far as India proper is concerned,--and
so overgrown with fungous growth of idolatry and demonolatry in other lands
as to be almost unrecognisable,--has its elephant legends. The elephant
takes the place of the dove in the Annunciation to Maya Devi of the coming
of the Bodisát. She lies asleep and the creature appears to her in many
sculptures at Amravati and Southern India, but, hitherto, only once in the
extensive series from the North-West frontier where the Buddhist legend is
told with more than a mere touch of the classic Art of Europe. Another
incident of the legend is the miracle of the subjugation of the elephant,
made _mast_ or frenzied by Devaditta, the envious schismatic, and sent to
meet and murder the Lord Buddha. They met as the conspirator hoped, but
instead of trampling the master underfoot, the creature stood still and
worshipped as Buddha touched its forehead. Later stories tell of an
elephant's body hurled an immense distance by the Lord Buddha, but they
belong to a cycle of incrustations of dead matter.
An ancient use of the elephant has come to light in the copperplate and
other inscriptions which are all that is left to record early Hindu
dynasties. Grants of land, wells, and buildings made for religious purposes
were set forth in poetical terms in inscriptions which are often of great
length. Frequently, in fixing a boundary an elephant was turned loose and
the course the wise beast took was accepted as the limit of the grant. How
he went north by such and such a stream, then turned north-east towards a
clump of mango trees and so forth, is elaborately described; the notion
evidently being that the elephant was heaven-directed. But one can see the
astute attendant Brahmans from here, skilled in directing the heavenly
intuitions of both men and beasts to their own profit. The praises of kings
as rehearsed on these documents are monuments of hyperbole. Rutting
elephants, fighting elephants, thousands of elephants, millions of
elephants, billions of elephants frenzied with blood and irresistible in
strength, are as naught to these monarchs of the prime, who also are
represented as miracles of benevolence and virtue. No superlative is too
strong for these absurd rigmaroles, among which antiquarians grope in
search of a fact, a name, or a date. There are many lies in history, but
Hindu writers are remarkable for having deliberately and of set principle
ignored all the facts of life. All is done, however, with such an air of
conviction and pious purpose that we must use Dr. Johnson's kindly
discrimination and say they are not inexcusable, but consecrated liars.
I know a Jemadar of Mahouts, _i.e._ a head elephant keeper, who says there
is a tradition among men of his craft that elephants first came to India
from the farthest East,--"from China and beyond." This notion was supported
by quotations from elephant words of command, some of which "are not Indian
talk and must be Chinese" (or Burmese). An elephant driver's philology may
not command much respect, but the notion is worth mentioning. The Sanscrit
word _hāthi_, the "handed" one (Lord Tennyson, following Lucretius, says,
"serpent handed"), in popular use is less used by mahouts than the Pali,
_gaj_, frequently compounded with weapons, flowers, etc., to make a name,
as _Katár-gaj_--dagger elephant; _Moti-gaj_--pearl elephant. The Persian
word _pil_ is also used,--the chess bishop is a _pilah_ or elephant, and an
elephant stable is a _pil-khana_. No beast has so many pretty names; Pearl,
Diamond, Necklace of Beauty, Lightning, Lily, Rose, Jasmine, Lotus, Silver
Star, Garland of Flowers, Golden One, Black Snake, are a few, and the
heroes and heroines of poetry also lend their names to my lord the
elephant, and testify to the esteem in which he is held. For female
elephants the word _piyāri_, love or darling, is frequently added to some
pretty female name, as _Radha piyāri_; (Radha is Krishna's wife). Mahouts
also claim that he is the only animal in man's service who is told in so
many words to eat and sleep. As a matter of fact, although there may be a
word of command for sleep, it can be of little use, for no creature sleeps
so little or so lightly,--seldom for more than four hours out of the
twenty-four.
A popular and ancient name for a king is _Gajpati_, Elephant Lord. The
beast is a pageant in himself, and when arrayed as only the Oriental knows
how, he is splendid in colour and majestic in mass. The finest part of the
ceremonial at the Delhi Imperial assemblage, was the great fleet of
elephants riding at anchor, so to speak, among the serried waves of troops
and people. When the tremendous _feu-de-joie_ that followed the
proclamation was fired, there was a movement of alarm among these mighty
creatures. "That startled them," we said, but did not guess the truth, that
several people were killed in the crush that followed the slight stir we
saw in the distant host as when a breeze stirs the growing corn. Kings are
not now the only lords of elephants, for a significant sign of the
prosperity of the country is the possession of elephants by men whose
fathers never owned them, and whose rank would be better represented by the
word Squire than Lord. Many merchants and traders can now better afford the
glory of elephants than real kings. There is a Raja in the hills,--a very
small Raja,--with a very small income, exactly four-fifths of which are
spent in maintaining an elephant, the awe and admiration of his little
handful of subjects. They all spend much of their large staple of leisure
over the elephant, and rightly too, for he is a more imposing symbol than a
crown and sceptre or a diamond plume, and when their Raja rides forth, they
follow him with pride and shouting.
Though essentially amiable, the elephant was often made to serve as public
executioner by native princes in the ante-British days. Sometimes the
victim was bound hand and foot, then the living log was chained with a
fathom long chain to the hind foot of an elephant which was swiftly hurried
through the city for all to see the battering out of his life. It is only a
year or two since the executioner elephant of a Hill State, which was known
to have killed a large number of persons in his official capacity, died
from cold while crossing a mountain pass. The Raja to whom he belonged
towards the close of his career was more than half mad and led his little
court a terrible life. He used to appear in durbar saying: "I have been
dreaming of such an one, let him be slain." A respectable old gentleman
whose forehead was disfigured by a scar, told a friend of mine how it was
once his fate to be dreamed of and ordered for execution, and how he was
only saved at the last moment by a friendly Wăzir or Minister suggesting to
the Raja that if the poor man paid a fine of a thousand rupees and was
branded on the brow, he would probably take care in the future not to
interfere with His Highness's dreams, whereas if he were killed outright
his ghost would surely reappear. This argument prevailed for once. It was
the Raja's pleasure to officiate as mahout on these occasions. The bound
victim was handed to the elephant, who at the word of command seized him
with his trunk and whirled him right and left against his fore-legs with
the familiar action, peculiar to elephants, of swishing the dust from each
wisp of provender before putting it into the mouth. Then he was thrown on
the ground and kicked from fore to hind feet to and fro, then his arms were
wrenched from his body. Then the great feet came down upon him in turn, and
at a final word he was knelt upon; the now lifeless body being crushed to a
shapeless mass. And all was done with a slow deliberation of ordered
movement that must have been terrible to see. Dr. Wolff describes another
hill Raja as a most stupid and ignorant man, and "the most horrid brute
that ever lived. His great delight was to ride upon an elephant, which was
made to tread upon a little child, so as to crush it to death."
Yet cruelty ought not to be a tradition of the Himálaya, for the only
Oriental I have seen shed a tear for an animal was a Wăzir or Minister of
that same Hill State, which need not be named here. Once at a
halting-place far in the hills, leaning on a rail with a friend, we watched
the sunset. At a little distance a pony was grazing on a tiny green meadow
terrace above the road. As we looked we saw with amazement that the pony
was disappearing, hind-quarters first, until it sank completely out of
sight; nor, from our point of view, was there any apparent solution of
continuity in the green carpet on which but now it stood. One of those
absurd occurrences that incline you to pinch yourself to feel if you are
awake,--it was in reality quite simple. The meadow was the roof of some
long disused huts, and the rotten timbers supporting the soil had given
way, letting the surprised pony down into a sort of cellar. The beast was
the property of a Wăzir returning with his retinue from a visit to Simla,
and his grief was quaintly demonstrative. Weeping hard, he laid alongside
the chasm trying to embrace his steed, nearly tumbling in himself, and
while we were busy with ropes and timbers hauling the creature up and
contriving that he should emerge on the side towards the hill, the good
Wăzir distractedly hovered round, wringing his hands, and doing less than
nothing in the work of rescue. The pony was never in danger, was no whit
the worse, but its master's tears were real and his words of sympathy were
sincere.
The real character of the elephant has been studied exhaustively and
described once for all by Mr. G. P. Sanderson in his admirable book,
_Thirteen years among the wild beasts of India_. Mr. Sanderson is not only
a master of Indian woodcraft and a Nimrod of varied experiences, but a most
sympathetic observer of animal life and character, and yet as acute and
discriminating as a Judge on the Bench. He has disposed of the wonderful
stories of cunning and devotion attributed to the elephant, such as the
douche of dirty water thrown over the spiteful ninth-part man who pricked
the creature's trunk with his needle, and the artilleryman snatched from
under the wheel of a gun. Mr. Sanderson also says that "the natives of
India never speak of the elephant as a peculiarly intelligent animal, and
it does not figure in their ancient literature for its wisdom, as do the
fox, the crow, and the monkey." My experience is that the popular estimate
of the elephant's character and intelligence is a high one; and with regard
to the neglect of the animal by ancient writers as a type of wisdom we
should remember that Oriental poetry and legend have adopted from the
earliest times a series of similitudes to which they adhere with mechanical
fidelity. There is a polity of animals, so to speak. The jackal is cunning
and clever; the tiger is fierce and deadly, but may be most ignominiously
deceived and played with by clever jackals and old women; the crow is sly
and ready; the parrot is wise, a tale-bearer, and full of resource; the
monkey is intelligent and kin to man; the serpent, when he is not a prince
bewitched, is secret, malignant, and powerful; the dove is gentle; the deer
and the antelope are tender and affectionate, pious Brahmans of the
jungle--and so forth and so following; but the elephant invariably appears
as the image of power and might in war. Kings are elephants and so are
great warriors. Ticketed, as it were, with this lordly label, the poet and
the storyteller of the prime, whose means were simple and whose
discriminations were broad, would hesitate to notice in the elephant homely
qualities already assigned to the jackal, the crow, and the monkey.
The permanent retention of the elephant as the type of martial prowess is
another illustration of the merely literary and unobservant quality of
much of the work for which our admiration is challenged by scholars. The
real fact of the animal's nature is gentleness. His trunk might be packed
full of the jewels of which he is said to carry a priceless sample in his
head, so careful is he to guard it from danger. Nor is he cautious without
a cause. He cannot live without his trunk, and though guarded by a pair of
ivory bayonets, it is as vulnerable as a garden slug. It is admitted in a
saying still current that "the mad elephant destroys its own army." If, for
mad, we say frightened, we reach the main truth of elephant warfare from
the time of Porus to that Mohurrum fête day when Raja Sahib drove his
elephants with iron-clad brows against the gates of Arcot, and Clive's
bullets sent them raging back to trample on their own masters.
Mr. Sanderson speaks of mahouts as "rascals more often than not," and as
"invariably superstitious and ignorant." They tell and believe of the
beasts in their charge more wonderful stories of intelligence than any in
our children's books. These stories have spread and are so firmly credited
that I venture to question his assertion that natives of India never speak
of the animal as peculiarly intelligent. A mahout told me and a group of
native friends, of an elephant that cherished a grudge against his driver,
who, being aware of this, kept carefully out of the animal's reach, and on
the march spread his sleeping-blanket at what he thought a safe distance.
But one night the elephant chewed the end of a long bamboo till the fibres
were loose and brush-like, and, pushing it "gently, gently, slowly,
slowly," towards his sleeping enemy, whose long hair was loose, twisted the
bamboo so that its fibres were firmly entangled, and before he could awake
pulled the poor wretch within reach of the quick kicking feet, which
promptly made an end of him.
All my friends believed this terrible tale, and so did I,--for the moment;
and that is quite enough for all artistic and Oriental purposes.
They also gave credit to a calculating elephant who was allowed a ration of
twelve flap-jacks of wheaten meal for his supper. But the mahout had a
large family and appropriated one of the cakes. The wise elephant turned
the pile over and laid out the eleven cakes in a row, trumpeting loudly
when the master came by; so that mahout was beaten with shoes.
Another tale, for which I do not claim implicit belief, tells of an
elephant who with his mahout was engaged to root up bushes in a tea garden.
The mahout, like more of his class, was in the habit of going on periodical
drinking bouts. Once he asked for ten days' leave to attend a funeral,
assuring the Planter that he could instruct his beast to work faithfully
under the goad of a substitute who was there and then introduced, while the
elephant was formally charged to behave well and work hard during his
master's ten days of absence. But the funeral was a very thirsty one, and
on the eleventh day the mahout had not returned. The substitute came
rushing up to the Planter's bungalow, crying that the elephant refused to
work. The British Planter said he would see about that, took his whip, and
went to reason with him, but presently came back at his highest speed,
followed by the angry beast with uplifted trunk. The coolies ran away in
fright, and for two days my lord the elephant roamed round the deserted
gardens at his leisure. On the thirteenth day the mahout returned and was
received with gladness by the animal, who forthwith set about his work
with a will; but they say the Planter, being a bloated capitalist, refused
to retain a creature which could go on strike to such purpose as to shut up
the whole concern.
Mahouts also believe that when a wild elephant is coming downhill and
cannot reach forward with his trunk to sound a dangerous foot-hold, he
breaks a sapling and, holding it like an alpen-stock, probes and feels his
way. Colonel Lewin tells me of a belief in the Chittagong Hill tracts, that
wild elephants assemble together to dance! Further, that once he came with
his men on a large cleared place in the forest, the floor beaten hard and
smooth, like that of a native hut. "This," said the men, in perfect good
faith, "is an elephant nautch-khana"--ballroom. It is a common remark that
stout people are often light dancers, and sometimes most eligible partners.
The elephant, in spite of his bulk, is both on land and water a very
buoyant person, quick on his feet and, in his deliberate way, as clever a
kicker as a mule, which is saying a great deal. There is therefore no
reason why he should not dance, and I confess to a deep envy of the Assam
coolie, who said he had been a hidden unbidden guest at an elephant ball.
Elephants are easily taught to dance by American and European circus
trainers; and it is recorded by an American trainer that elephants off
duty, left entirely to themselves, have been seen to rehearse the lessons
they have learned. Let us believe, then, until some dismal authority
forbids us, that the elephant _beau monde_ meets by the bright Indian
moonlight in the ballrooms they clear in the depths of the forest, and
dance mammoth quadrilles and reels to the sighing of the wind through the
trees and their own trumpeting, shrill and sudden as the Highlander's hoch!
It is firmly believed that dead elephants are buried by their kind. Mr.
Sanderson admits that he is unable to account for the total absence of
their remains in the jungle, and so gives us leave to share for once in an
Orient mystery, dim and inscrutable. The free-thinking native who solves it
by boldly claiming that the great beasts, left to themselves, do not die at
all, does not diminish the marvel, which still remains to delight all those
who love to wonder.
It is natural that a creature so highly esteemed should be made to reflect
the popular conception of Hindu character in its weaknesses and failings as
well as in its placid and gentle strength. He is believed with little cause
to be keenly sensitive; they say he breaks his heart like a proud Rajput,
and dies at will of resentment or grief. So do some Orientals. He is said
to have a memory for insult or injury as tenacious as that of a usurer for
a debt, and soon or late he will be even with his oppressor. He can be
taught to master his natural timidity, and when properly led he will face
the tiger in his lair, but he is not ashamed to fly before a little dog. In
sickness he comes very close to the human, for the mahouts say he resigns
himself like a native when stricken with fever; when he lies down they give
him up, for he gives up all hope of himself, and against a despair of that
bulk there is no argument. He is liable to sudden bursts of rage, and can
sulk in ill-temper for days at a time. When downright mad nothing can stand
before him. Death in Hindu poetry and talk is a mad elephant, for who shall
stay him? Love and lust are also mad elephants, blind, unreasoning, and
cruel.
"There are many footsteps in the footprint of the elephant," for elephant
lords have many followers. In most native forts and palaces there are
elephant paths and high-arched elephant gates, slopes or stairways of wide
tread, down which the State elephants march, taking the women of the Zenana
or their lords for an airing. The milky way in the heavens is sometimes
called the elephant's path. Silver ingots of a certain shape are
"elephant's feet" and among silversmiths the name is used to discriminate a
quality of silver.
[Illustration: AN ELEPHANT GOAD (ANKUS)]
In Assam, where they are familiar with elephants, they say, "The elephant
brings forth one at a birth, the pig ten." "A small elephant is still
larger than a big buffalo," and "Bamboos are tied with bamboos and
elephants are caught by elephants," are also sayings from that region.
Where the Englishman would say the back of a job was broken, or "All is
over but the shouting," an Oriental often says, "The elephant is out, only
the tail remains." "Teeth for use and teeth for show," carries an
understood allusion to the elephant, who has tremendous molars hidden in
his head as well as handsome external tusks. Sometimes for state occasions
an animal with poor or elementary tusks is fitted with a jury pair, a feat
of dentistry of which mahouts are proud. To the over-bold who would meddle
with the great it is said: "Would you snatch sugar-cane from an elephant?"
"The dog may bark but the elephant moves on" is sometimes said to indicate
the superiority of the great to popular clamour, but the best form of the
phrase is, "Though the dog may bark the caravan (_kafila_) moves on." For
the elephant hates and fears dogs as much as some great men of to-day hate
noisy newspapers, and with better reason. Nature, in furnishing the beast
with a soft and tender trunk, has bound him down to keep the peace with all
creation. That in spite of this disability he can be brought to face the
tiger shows convincingly the docility and superiority of his nature. Yet
though the beast is counted lordly, he still has a master, so they say
again, "The elephant's god is his goad." Big things and men are naturally
called elephantine. Maharaja Ranjit Singh used to speak of the fine English
cart-horses sent out to him as a gift from the English Government as his
"elephant horses," and he tied them up and fed them to death in the native
fashion with great pride and satisfaction. "When the handed one puts forth
his handiness, a man is but a fly before him," is a clumsy paraphrase of a
saying that plays with the word _hāthi_. "The poor have no friends, but
elephants wait at the rich man's door," is one of the rare complaints of
Indian lowliness. It is doubtful whether any other races in the world are
more free from envy. The beggar cries, "God will give you an elephant to
ride on, I'll take a farthing to-day." When English girls marry, their
parents say they are sorely grieved to lose them; but Indian fathers are
frank, and acknowledge at once the trouble and cost of daughters and
elephants in "The daughter is best at her father-in-law's house, as the
elephant is best at the Raja's."
A man's saying is "A man at sixty is a young elephant, a woman at twenty is
growing old." There is a fine braggadocio in this, but the honest truth is
that the Indian woman has not a fair chance, being deliberately sacrificed
by the custom of too early marriage. English poets write prettily of Hindu
maidens, but there are no Hindu maidens in any true sense. A brutal saying
like this drives home the fact that millions of girls, bright and charming
as any in the world, are deprived of that period of spring-time freedom and
lightness of heart which is their birthright. Nor is there any excuse for
this deprivation, for it has been demonstrated that the Indian woman comes
no earlier to maturity than her sister in the West. And the Hindu man at
sixty is like a young elephant in nothing save bulk.
* * * * *
The docility of the elephant is never more evident than when he is dressed
for parade on an occasion of state. It is a long and tiresome business to
clothe the creature in the ornaments and housings with which luxuriant
Oriental taste loves to bedizen him. You may make a four-post bedstead very
splendid in a cinque-cento or a Louis Quatorze manner; a horse can carry a
great load of finery; even men and women, duchesses, actresses, kings and
queens, stagger proudly under fine trappings, but the elephant is made for
display as a mountain range for sunset effect. Sir Henry Cole, in years
gone by, used to contemplate the vast brick walls built by Captain Fowke
for the 1862 Exhibition, and say, "That is a surface which invites
decoration." The façade of the nude elephant is no less noble and no less
urgent in its appeal to the eye. But the great beast, shifting uneasily on
his feet, does not always take kindly to his trappings, and is much less
steady than a brick wall.
[Illustration: UNDRESS]
[Illustration: A PAINTED ELEPHANT]
Yet at the worst there is little more difficulty in decking the elephant
than in dressing a fidgety child for church. First he must be washed,
sometimes at a well-brink, where, if properly taught, he draws his own
water, but an irrigation cut or tank is generally preferred, where the
great baby is made to lie down, to raise his head or leg at a word, while
the mahout, often assisted by his son, who assumes tremendous airs of
authority if he is very young, climbs about his huge bulk and scrubs him
with brick-bats. A brick flesh-rubber is in common use for men's feet, and
seems to suit the elephant perfectly. But the creature is generally
inattentive during the process, he "plays with the soap" so to speak, blows
clouds of vapour from his trunk, lifts up the wrong leg, rolls over at the
wrong minute, and is scolded like a child, with now and then, from a hasty
mahout as from an irritable nursemaid, a blow. When the washing is finished
he slings his nurses up to his neck with his trunk, or gives them a "leg
up" behind in the friendly fashion peculiar to him, and shuffles back to
the serai or yard to be dressed. If the occasion be a very grand one, a day
or two will be consumed in preparations. First the forehead, trunk, and
ears are painted in bold patterns in colour. This is a work of art, for the
designs are often good, and the whole serai, excepting always the elephant
himself, is deeply interested. His mind and trunk wander; he trifles with
the colour pots; so with each stroke comes an order to stand still. Some
mahouts are quite skilful in this pattern work. Then the howdah pad is
girthed on with cotton ropes riding over flaps of leather to prevent the
chafing to which the sensitive skin is liable. The howdah itself, a
cumbrous frame of wood covered with beaten silver plates, is slung and
tied with a purchase on the tail-root, and heavy cloths broidered in raised
work of gold and silver thread are attached, hanging like altar cloths down
the sides. A frontlet of gold and silver diaper with fringes of fish-shaped
ornaments in thin beaten silver, necklaces of large silver hawk-bells and
chain work, with embossed heart-shaped pendants as big as the open hand,
and hanging ornaments of chains of silver cartouches, are adjusted. A
cresting of silver ornaments like small vases or fluted soup tureens,
exaggerations of the knobs along a horse's crest, descend from the rear of
the howdah to the tail, anklets of silver are sometimes fitted round the
huge legs, and a bell is always slung at his side. The pillars of the
howdah canopies, and then the canopies themselves with their finials, are
fitted as the beast kneels. A long business, because in India things are
apt to be missing when they are wanted, and though much of this brave
upholstery fits at the first attempt, there are always, even in the
best-regulated elephant stables, little deficiencies to be supplied: and
many odd bits of string are used. From the right distance, however, they do
not show, and if they should catch the eye, why, "the screw was lost or
worn out," or, "it was always so," or, "the smith or the tailor has been
told a dozen times about it"--and a deprecating smile ends the matter.
At last my lord the elephant is ready, but even now is apt to get into
trouble. His natural habit is to fling dust, leaves, and fodder stalks on
his back, just as it is the natural inclination of the smartly-dressed
little boy to go straightway and make a mud pie. So he must be looked after
while the mahout puts on a coat and turban, and, armed with his _ankus_ or
goad hook, of gilded steel, and a fly flap of yak tail in a silver handle,
is ready to mount. "_Mâil, Mâil Barchhi gaj Bahadur!_" "Go on, go on, my
Lord the Spear!" and they join the retinue of spear-men, mace and staff
bearers, and other attendants waiting for the Raja. And frequently you will
see in the midst of the blaze of colour and silver and gold one of the
mahout's little boys leaning with folded arms and legs crossed at ease
against the fore-leg of the foremost elephant. He is as near nude as may
be, but from the complacent grin on the unkempt little monkey's face you
might fancy he considered himself the most important figure in the show.
Nor would he be ignominiously sent away, save by some officious underling.
Urbane old Wazirs would glance at him with an amiable smile, though they
did not confess aloud that his was an auspicious intrusion: as of the black
spot in the splendour of the poppy:--a "_năzăr wăttu_" or averter of the
evil eye, the Nemesis always waiting for those who do not acknowledge by
some lowly touch of imperfectness that "the glories of our birth and state
are shadows, not substantial things."
It is not now thought a great feat to send elephants down to the sea in
ships. They are engirdled with slings as they stand, little dreaming that
presently they will be snatched up, swung aloft, and lowered deep into a
dark hold.
[Illustration: WAITING FOR THE RAJA]
Some of the earlier cargoes were not so easily managed. A distinguished
officer told me of his troubles with a batch of elephants he took from
Calcutta to Chittagong, and how they very nearly wrecked a ship. The first
to be shipped was awkwardly handled, caught the hatchway with his tusks and
trunk, slung himself askew, and struggled and fought hard. But at last
all the forty were stowed, and the steamer went down the Hooghly, anchoring
for the night in an oil-still sea off Saugor Point. Now the elephant is the
most restless creature alive, always in motion; a fact which native
observation has noted in the saying, "An elephant's shoulder is never
still." At first they said it was a ground swell that made the ship roll so
much, but soon the Captain came in dire alarm to the officer in charge of
the freight. The elephants had found that by swaying to and fro all
together, a rocking motion was produced which seemed to please them
immensely. So the great heads and bodies rolled and swung in unison, till
the ship, which had no other cargo and rode light, was in imminent danger
of rolling clean over. The mahouts were hurried down into the hold, and
each, seated on his beast, made him "break step" so to speak. There they
had to stay for a long time. An unforeseen difficulty was found in carrying
fodder along the central avenue. The elephants would allow a laden coolie
to proceed a little way, and then, with the quiet mischief of their kind,
one would lay him by the heels with his trunk while the others snatched his
bundles of grass. So they made a gangway over their backs along which the
coolies crawled. The worst was when the elephant first shipped died in his
place, of vexation, mahouts would say, who believe the creatures only die
when they are so inclined. He was the farthest from the hatchway, and in
the awful heat of the Bay of Bengal he had to be taken to pieces and passed
through the line of his brethren, up and over the side in ships' buckets!
Arrived in port there was no wharf, and the animals had to swim and wade a
mile of water from the anchorage to the shore. The first was slung down,
his mahout on his neck, to the water, as it seemed from the deck, a lascar
clinging to the chain to let go the swivel. He let go too soon, the
elephant fell with a mighty splash, losing his mahout, while the suddenly
released chain shot the astonished lascar like a bolt from a catapult some
fifty yards away.
[Illustration: IN ROYAL STATE]
It is not, however, trials of this kind that make the English transport
officer, struggling across creation with mules, oxen, and elephants, gray
before his time, but the number of reports and dockets he has to write.
That dead elephant's tusks were a congenial subject to Commissariat clerks,
and they "had the honour to inquire" in many letters.
We have turned from the elephant as he appears to the Oriental, to the
creature as he really is, and it may be interesting to hear the account of
him that the paternal Government of India has to give. For that Government
is itself elephantine in its nature, capable of supporting great weights,
but prone also to busy itself in infinite details with restless and
inquisitive trunk. The proper treatment of the animal in health and disease
is set forth in a manual by the late Mr. Steel, a high veterinary
authority, while the Commissariat and other departments concerned with the
large property of the State in elephants are carefully instructed in their
management. It is officially stated that--"all who have had to deal with
elephants agree that their good qualities cannot be exaggerated; that their
vices are few and only occur in exceptional animals; that they are neither
treacherous nor retentive of injury; and that they are obedient, gentle,
and patient beyond measure." This is higher and more sympathetic praise
than is usually tied up in the pink tape of Secretariats, and it is all
true. The next sentence, however, of the official characterisation
declares that in many things the elephant is "a decidedly stupid animal!"
It was ever hard to find wit and virtue combined, but it may be doubted
whether the sentence is quite just. Intelligence among animals is a matter
of delicate and difficult comparison. Simplicity of character were a better
word than stupidity. A stupid creature refuses to learn and to obey. The
elephant under sympathetic treatment always tries to obey, and can be
taught to perform acts foreign to all we know of its nature. This entitles
it to a higher place on the strictly limited scale of animal intelligence
than the word "stupid" indicates. Its inquisitiveness is confined to
objects within elephant range, and its sympathies, like those of all purely
vegetarian animals which have to spend a large proportion of their time in
eating, are narrow. Of a dog, on the other hand, it was once delightfully
remarked in the American tongue, "Don't say that before Snap. Snap don't
know he's only a dog; he thinks he's folks!" No mahout would begin to think
of his placid self-contained charge along this line. They all seem to
regard elephant character as a thing apart, and with a respect which a
stupid animal could not command,--even from mahouts.
As to the strength of the beast and the best way of turning it to account,
there is less room for controversy. On a march, weight-carrying is the work
an elephant can best perform, for though he can pull strenuously and well,
his frame is not suited for long spells of draught work. His chest is
relatively small and weak; so sometimes he is made to pull with ropes tied
to the tusks, and sometimes from his waist, if an elephant can be said to
have a waist--but the mighty forehead would, to an amateur, appear to be
the best hitching point.
The normal load for continuous travel of a fair-sized elephant is 800
pounds, so the animal is equal to eight ponies, small mules, or asses; to
five stout pack-mules or bullocks, and to three and one-third of a camel.
Under such a load the elephant travels at a fair speed, keeping well up
with an ordinary army or baggage train, requiring no made road, few guards,
and occupying less depth in column than other animals. He is invaluable in
jungle country and all roadless regions where heavy loads are to be moved.
In Burmah and on the east and south-east frontier elephants are absolutely
necessary for military supply. When once a good road is made, the beast is,
of course, easily beaten by wheeled carriage.
He shines most as a special Providence when the cattle of a baggage train
or the horses of a battery are stalled in a bog or struggling helplessly at
a steep place. An elephant's tusks and trunk serve at once as lever,
screw-jack, dog-hooks, and crane, quickly setting overturned carts and
gun-carriages right, lifting them by main force or dragging them in narrow
winding defiles where a long team cannot act; while his head, protected by
a pad, is a ram of immense force and superior handiness.
I write "he" mechanically, but it ought to be said that in consequence of
the liability of the male to occasional fits of ill-temper from functional
causes, it has been decreed that only females are to enter Government
service, and they should not be less than twenty or more than thirty years
of age, capable of carrying 1200 pounds for a first-class elephant (eight
feet high and over) and 960 pounds for a second-class animal (under eight
feet in height), exclusive of gear. No recruit under seven feet should be
admitted. Male animals are preferred by Native Princes on account of their
larger size and prouder bearing, and among about two thousand elephants
owned by the British Government a few males are kept for State and parade
purposes. An elephant at twenty-five years of age may be compared to a
human being of eighteen. He attains his full strength and vigour at about
thirty-five, and has been known to live a hundred and twenty years.
[Illustration: ELEPHANT PILING TIMBER (BURMAH)]
A born forester, it is in jungle-work that the labouring elephant outside
Government service is seen at his best. The tea-planters of Assam and
Ceylon find him useful in forest clearing and as a pack animal. They even
yoke him to the plough. He is the leading hand in the teak trade of
Burmah,--unrivalled in the heavy toil of the timber-yard, where he piles
logs with wonderful neatness and quickness. Small timbers are carried on
the tusks, clipped over and held fast by the trunk. A log with a thick butt
is seized with judicious appreciation of balance, while long and heavy
baulks are levered and pushed into place.
[Illustration: ELEPHANT LIFTING TEAK LOGS (BURMAH)]
As to its keep, the elephant is a chargeable beast; costing from £4 to £8 a
month when rations of rice or wheaten flour cakes are given, as they should
be, with fodder-stalks and leaves of various kinds. Rum, brandy, or arrack,
mixed with ginger, cloves, pepper, and treacle, and made into a paste with
flour, provide the elephant with a sort of tipsy-cake that cheers and
comforts him when suffering from fatigue or cold. In the matter of food and
stimulants, however, mahouts have no conscience, and steal without a qualm.
Ages of slack-handed usage have settled that the servant of the elephant
and three generations of his family shall live on the beast he is paid to
cherish. Allowances are given for flour, fire-wood, oil, and spices, but
the elephant only gets a share in them, and not always that. So the worst
ailment he has to face is semi-starvation, the lot of most elephants in
captivity. The beast is in truth a noble anachronism, belonging to a young
world time of denser foliage than this dried-up age which packs hay in
trusses and treasures ensilage in pits. But the thievish mahout is
responsible for the worst of his belly-pinch. Yet elephant men are usually
spoken of as models of devotion to their beasts. "They love 'em, sir," said
an English officer to me once. But that does not prevent their showing an
indifference to their comfort, characteristic of all Orientals, whose talk
often drips with sentiment, while their practice is of dry brutality. The
acknowledged authorities on the subject, Mr. Sanderson and the late Mr. J.
H. Steel, agree that mahouts invariably make the animals' comfort
subservient to their own. Even the best of them will seldom take the
trouble to put their beasts under the shadow of a tree at mid-day. They
also have the cruel Indian trick of securing the animals fore and aft in
the most irksome manner possible. A rope or chain fastened to one foot and
to a peg in the ground is sufficient restraint for most elephants, and
allows them to turn to and from the sun and wind as they find agreeable.
Mahouts think nothing of securing an animal so that one side is exposed day
and night to wind or rain. The practice of tight tying up is particularly
repugnant to those who have a sympathetic knowledge of the restless,
swaying, Johnsonian habit rooted in the beast's nature. The native servant
himself keenly appreciates his liberty and is the most elusive creature
alive, perpetually slinking from his duty into the jungles of the bazar.
But when he ruleth he is a terrible despot.
Outside India it is believed that elephants are dying out of the land. The
example of America, where the men and creatures natural to the soil have
been exterminated to make room for a too triumphant civilisation, has
taught the world a lesson of anxiety. But animal lovers may rest content,
for the elephants of India, like the people, are increasing in numbers.
They are carefully protected in their natural haunts, whence English
officers of experience draw supplies for use with as much system and
regularity as sheep are drafted from the hillside flock. The details of the
Government kheddah or capturing arrangements are full of interest,--sport
in its finest sense; nor is it easy to say whether the skill in woodcraft
of the English directors, or the courage, endurance, and patience of the
natives employed, are most admirable. Like a strong ass between two
burdens, the British Government has been beaten with many staves, and also
with fools' truncheons of pantomime paper, but, at least, it has tried to
husband the resources of the country.
The thoughtful Germans are said to meditate the re-capture and
domestication in their new Equatorial realm of the African elephant, free
since the days of Hannibal. It is to be hoped this is true, for there is
naught sillier under the sun than the slaughter which has hitherto been all
that civilisation had to bestow on these blameless Ethiopians.