exclaims in terms that have been repeated for nearly two thousand
years, “_Vidi elephantos quosdam qui prudentiores mihi vidabantur
quàm quibusdam in locis hominis_,” should have thus relinquished
his advantages, abandoned an unassailable position, and knowing the
consequences, rushed upon destruction in this way, is deplorable, and
the worst of it is that he always does this. The intellect of which
Strabo calmly asserts that it “_ad rationale animal proxime accedit_,”
is never sufficient to save him. Probably, however, this conduct might
appear to be more consistent, if instead of trusting to these very
classical but perfectly worthless opinions, we looked upon it from the
standpoint which Sanderson’s description affords. “Though possessed
of a proboscis which is capable of guarding it against such dangers,
the elephant readily falls into pits dug to receive it, and which are
only covered with a few sticks and leaves. Its fellows make no effort
(in general) to assist the fallen one, as they might easily do by
kicking in the earth around the edge, but fly in terror. It commonly
happens that a young elephant tumbles into a pit, near which its mother
will remain till the hunters come, without doing anything to help it;
not even feeding it by throwing in a few branches.... Whole herds of
elephants are led into enclosures which they could break through as
easily as if they were made of corn stalks ... and which no other wild
animal would enter; and single ones are caught by their hind legs being
tied together by men under cover of tame elephants. Animals that happen
to escape are captured again without trouble; even experience does not
bring them wisdom. I do not think that I traduce the elephant, when I
say that it is, in many things, a stupid animal.”
Baldwin, Harris, and a few other authorities, report that elephants
are sometimes attacked by the black rhinoceros, but otherwise they
have no foes except man. In Sir James Alexander’s account (“Excursion
into Africa”) of the manner in which these beasts attempt to defend
themselves against the charge of an enemy of this kind, it is implied
that the trunk is habitually used offensively. “In fighting the
elephant,” he observes, the two-horned black rhinoceros, for no white
rhinoceros ever does this, “avoids the blow with its trunk and the
thrust with its tusks, dashes at the elephant’s belly, and rips it up.”
Quite a number of writers have derided and denied statements of this
nature, and if it were not that they have likewise scouted everything
which they did not see themselves, their dissent might have more
weight than it has. Everybody knows that the species of rhinoceros
spoken of are of all wild beasts the most irritable, aggressive, and
blindly ferocious; that they will, as Selous asserts, “charge anybody
or anything.” Apart from the question whether this kind of combat
ever takes place, or what the result would be if it did, so many
reasons exist why the trunk should not be used like a flail, as here
represented, that good observers have failed to recognize the fact
that it sometimes is so employed. At all events, in face of various
assertions to the effect that it never strikes with its trunk, we
find Andersson nearly killed in this manner. He was shooting from a
“skärm”; that is to say, a trench about four feet deep, twelve or
fifteen long, and strongly roofed except at the ends. This hiding-place
and fortification occupied “a narrow neck of land dividing two small
pools”--the water-holes of Kabis in Africa. “It was a magnificent
moonlight night,” and the hunter soon heard the beasts coming along a
rocky ravine near by. Directly, “an immense elephant followed by the
towering forms of eighteen other bulls” moved down from high ground
towards his hiding place, “with free, sweeping, unsuspecting, and
stately step.” In the luminous mist their colossal figures assumed
gigantic proportions, “but the leader’s position did not afford an
opportunity for the shoulder shot,” and Andersson waited until his
“enormous bulk” actually towered above his head, without firing. “The
consequence was,” he says “that in the act of raising the muzzle of
my rifle over the skärm, my body caught his eye, and before I could
place the piece to my shoulder, he swung himself round, and with trunk
elevated, and ears spread, desperately charged me. It was now too late
to think of flight, much less of slaying the savage beast. My own
life was in the most imminent jeopardy; and seeing that if I remained
partially erect he would inevitably seize me with his proboscis, I
threw myself upon my back with some violence; in which position, and
without shouldering the rifle, I fired upwards at random towards his
chest, uttering at the same time the most piercing shouts and cries.
The change of position in all probability saved my life; for at the
same instant, the enraged animal’s trunk descended precisely upon the
spot where I had been previously crouched, sweeping away the stones
(many of them of large size) that formed the front of my skärm, as if
they had been pebbles. In another moment his broad forefoot passed
directly over my face.” Confused, as Andersson supposed, by his cries,
and by the wound he had received, the elephant “swerved to the left,
and went off with considerable rapidity.”
Of course, taking this narrative literally, it may be said that it is
not an illustration of the point under discussion--that the elephant
attempted to catch the man first, in order to kill him afterwards.
But prehensile organs are not used as such in the way described.
That Andersson was about to be seized was purely suppositious upon
his part, while the descent of the elephant’s proboscis, with such
violence that it swept away large stones as if they had been pebbles,
was a matter of fact. The animal _did_ strike, whether he intended to
do so or not, and that this was not his intention is merely a guess.
This story illustrates other traits also, and among these the alleged
fear of man. “An implanted instinct of that kind,” observes William
J. Burchell (“Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa”) “such as
all wild beasts have, their timidity and submission, form part of that
wise plan predetermined by the Deity, for giving supreme power to him
who is, physically, the weakest of them all.” The only objection to
this very orthodox statement is that it is not true. Man is not weaker
than many wild animals, and so far as “timidity and submission” go, he
might have found African tribes barricading their villages and sleeping
in trees for no other purpose than to keep out of their way. Caution
proceeds from apprehension, and this from an experience of peril. When
the conditions of existence are such that certain dangers persist,
wariness in those directions originates and becomes hereditary. Man
has been the elephant’s constant foe, and in those places where human
beings were able to destroy them, these animals were overawed; but
otherwise not, or at least, certainly not in the sense in which this
assertion is generally made. With regard to the conclusions--many of
them directly contradictory--which prevail concerning the elephant’s
sense of smell, there are several circumstances which ought to be
taken into consideration, but with the exception of currents of air,
they have not been noticed to the author’s knowledge. Scent in an
elephant is very acute, and the scope of this sense, as well as its
delicacy and discrimination, is greater than in most animals. At the
same time, the nervous energy that vitalizes this apparatus is variable
in quantity, and never exceeds a definite amount at any one time. If
wind sweeps away those emanations which would otherwise have stimulated
the olfactories, no result occurs, and precisely the same consequence
follows a diversion of nerve force into other channels.
Many accounts have been given in which this seemed to be the cause of
an unconsciousness that was explained by saying that the sense itself
was in fault. Evidently, however, when the energy through which an
organ acts is fully employed in carrying on action somewhere else,
its function must be temporarily checked. Preoccupation, however,
fully accounts for the phenomenon. Thought, feeling, concentrations of
attention, physical and mental oscillations of many kinds, perturb,
check, pervert, augment, or diminish function in this and other
directions. If we cannot accustom ourselves to looking upon wild beasts
as acting consciously and voluntarily, it seems probable that little
progress towards understanding their habits and characters is likely to
be made.
How, for example, are the following facts related by Gordon Cumming, to
be reconciled with conventional opinions upon the shyness and timidity
of elephants, their fear of man, and the possession of instincts which
act independently of experience. It was in comparatively early times
that these events took place, before many Europeans with rifles had
gone into Africa, and when elephants knew less about firearms than they
did when the big tusker nearly finished Andersson. “Three princely
bulls,” says Colonel Cumming, “came up one night to the fountain of La
Bono.” They knew that a man was there, for they had got his wind. It is
possible that they also knew he was not a native, but if this were the
case, that was all that they knew.
The leader was mortally wounded at about ten paces from the water,
went off two hundred yards, “and there stood, evidently dying.” His
companions paused, “but soon one of them, the largest of the three,
turned his head towards the fountain once more, and very slowly and
warily came on.” At this moment the wounded elephant “uttered the
cry of death and fell heavily to the ground.” The second one, still
advancing, “examined with his trunk every yard of ground before he trod
on it.” Evidently there was no dancing, screaming horde of negroes with
assegais about; equally sure was it that danger threatened from human
devices, and the elephant, not being inspired as is commonly supposed,
was looking for the only peril he knew anything about; that is to say,
a pit-fall. As for the explosion and flash, these most probably were
mistaken for thunder and lightning. In this manner, and with frequent
pauses, this animal went round “three sides of the fountain, and then
walked up to within six or seven yards of the muzzles of the guns.” He
was shot and disabled at the water’s edge. By this time ignited wads
from the pieces discharged had set fire to a bunch of stubble near by,
and two more old bulls who followed the original band, went up to the
blaze; one, the older and larger, appearing to be “much amused at it.”
This tusker staggered off with a mortal wound, and another came forward
and stood still to drink within half pistol-shot of Colonel Cumming,
who killed him. Three more male elephants now made their appearance,
“first two, and then one,” and of these two were shot, though only one
of them fatally. What possible explanation can the doctrine of instinct
give of such behavior as this upon the part of wild beasts? How does
this kind of conduct accord with the idea of a ready-made mind that
does not need to learn in order to know? In what manner shall we adjust
such conduct to preconceptions concerning natural timidity and that
implanted fear of man “predetermined by the Deity”? It may be said, of
course, that Colonel Cumming’s account was overdrawn; but the reply to
an objection of this kind is that, overwhelming evidence to the same
effect could be easily produced.
When an observant visitor walks along the line of platforms in an
Indian elephant-stable, the differences exhibited by its occupants
can scarcely fail to attract attention; and with every increase in
his knowledge, these diversities accumulate in number and augment
in importance. During the free intercourse of forest life, some
influence, most probably sexual selection, has produced breeds whose
characteristics are unmistakable. Even the uninitiated may at once
recognize these. Koomeriah, Dwásala, and Meèrga elephants exhibit
marked contrasts, and experience has taught Europeans their respective
values. The first is the best proportioned, bravest, and most tractable
specimen of its kind; but it is rare. Intermediate between the
thoroughbred and an ugly, “weedy,” and in every way ill-conditioned
Meèrga, comes what is called the Dwásala breed, to which about
seventy per cent of all elephants in Asia belong. “Whole herds,” says
Sanderson, “frequently consist of Dwásalas, but never of Koomeriahs.”
Almost all animals used in hunting are of this middle class, and they
constitute by far the largest division of those kept by the government.
Females greatly outnumber males, and it may be owing to this fact that
so many have been used in the pursuit of large game, although some
famous sportsmen maintain that these are naturally more courageous and
stancher than tuskers.
Great as are the unlikenesses seen among inmates of an establishment
like that at Teperah, they will be found to be fully equalled by their
dissimilarities in character; and those who have become familiar with
elephants come to see that their dispositions and intelligence are
to some extent displayed by their ordinary demeanor and looks. It is
wonderful how much facial expression an elephant has. The face-skeleton
is imperfect; that is to say, its nasal bones are rudimentary, while
the mouth, and in fact all of the lower half of the face, is concealed
beneath the great muscles attached to the base of the trunk. But in
spite of that, and with his ears uncocked and his proboscis pendant, an
elephant’s countenance is full of character.
Passing along the lines where they stand, shackled by one foot to
stone platforms, one sees, or learns to see, the individualities
their visages reveal. Occasionally a heavily-fettered animal is met
with, whose mien is disturbed and fierce. In his “little twinkling
red eye,” says Campbell, “gleams the fire of madness.” He is “must”;
the victim of a temporary delirium which seems to arise from keeping
male elephants apart from their mates. But at length, amid all the
appearances of sullenness, good nature, stupidity, bad temper, apathy,
alertness, and intelligence, which the visitor will encounter, a
creature is met with in whose ensemble there is an indescribable but
unmistakable warning. Go to his keeper and state your views. That
“true believer,” if he happens to be a Mussulman, having salaamed in
proportion to his expected bucksheesh, and said that Solomon was a
fool in comparison with yourself, will then express his own sentiments
but not so that the animal can hear him. These are to the effect that
this elephant is an oppressor of the poor, a dog, a devil, an infidel,
whose female relations to the remotest generations have been no better
than they should be. That the kafir wants to kill him; is thinking
about doing it at that moment, but _Ul-humd-ul-illa_, praise be to
God, has not had a chance; though if it be his destiny, he will do so
some day. Very probably these are not empty words. Most frequently the
man knows what he is talking about. Still if one naturally asks, why
then he stays in such a position, the answer breathes the very genius
and spirit of the East. “Who can escape his destiny?” asks the idiotic
fatalist, and remains where he is.
The systems of rewards and punishments by which discipline is kept
up in a large elephant stable, affords several items of interest
with respect to the character of these beasts. If, as sometimes is
the case, an elephant shirks his work, or does it wrong on purpose,
is mutinous, stubborn, or mischievous, a couple of his comrades are
provided with a fathom or two of light chain with which they soundly
thrash the delinquent, very much to his temporary improvement. This
race is very fond of sweets, and sugar-cane or goor--unrefined
sugar--forms an efficient bribe to good behavior. The animals take to
drink very kindly, and when their accustomed ration of rum has been
stopped for misconduct, they truly repent. Mostly, however, elephants
are quiet, kindly beasts, and it is said by those who ought to know,
that animosity is not apt to be cherished against men who correct
them for faults of which they are themselves conscious. At the same
time, nobody, if he is wise, gives an elephant cause to think himself
injured. Very often the creature entertains this idea without cause,
and it is not uncommon for them to conceive hatreds almost at first
sight. D’Ewes (“Sporting in Both Hemispheres”) relates one of the many
reliable incidents illustrative of the animal’s implacability when
aggrieved. A friend of his, a field officer stationed at Jaulnah,
owned an elephant remarkable for its “extreme docility.” One of the
attendants--“not his mahout”--ill-treated the creature in some way
and was discharged in consequence. This man left the station; but six
years after he, unfortunately for himself, returned, and walked up to
renew his acquaintance with the abused brute, who let him approach
without giving the least indication of anger, and as soon as he was
close enough, trampled him to death. This is the kind of anecdote
which Professor Robinson remarks is “infinitely discreditable to the
elephant”; that fact, however, has nothing to do with the truth. All
those good qualities the creature possesses can be done justice to
without making any excursions into sentimental zoölogy. Captain A. W.
Drayson (“Sporting Scenes in Southern Africa”) asserts that “the
elephant stands very high among the class of wild animals.” That means
nothing; affords no help to those who are trying to find out how high
it stands. Sir Samuel Baker (“Wild Beasts and their Ways”) gives his
opinion more at length. Of the animal’s sagacity he observes that
it is, according to his ideas, “overrated. No elephant,” he says,
“that I ever saw, would spontaneously interfere to save his master
from drowning or from attack.... An enemy might assassinate you at
the feet of your favorite elephant, but he would never attempt to
interfere in your defence; he would probably run away, or, if not,
remain impassive, unless especially ordered or guided by his mahout.
This is incontestible.... It is impossible for an ordinary bystander
to comprehend the secret signs which are mutually understood by the
elephant and his guide.” Baker holds, with others who have really
studied elephants, that when they evince any special sagacity, it is
because they act under direction, and that if left to themselves they
usually do the wrong thing. The species is naturally nervous, and this
disability is increased by those alterations in its way of life that
domestication involves. Captivity likewise shortens its existence.
Profound physiological changes are thus produced, the most noticeable
of which are barrenness, great capriciousness of appetite, enfeeblement
of the digestive functions, and a marked vice of nutrition by which an
animal that recovers from injuries the most severe in its wild state
now finds every trifling hurt a serious matter, and often dies from
accidents that would otherwise have been of little moment. In the same
category must also be ranked the decreased endurance of tame elephants.
The Asiatic species is much inferior to the African in this respect, by
nature, but both sensibly deteriorate in this way when domesticated.
There is nothing to show that the African elephant is worse tempered
than the Asiatic. It has never been reclaimed by the natives, and that
fact no doubt has given rise to the opinion. In the Carthaginian,
Numidian, and Roman provinces, this species was made use of very much
as the other is now in India, and most if not all the famous homicidal
elephants we know of, belonged to the latter country. But it would
appear that a “rogue,” properly so called, requires peculiar conditions
under which to develop. “Rogue elephants,” says Drummond, “are rare;
indeed, it seems to me that it is necessary for the full formation of
that amiable animal’s character that it should inhabit a well-populated
district where continual opportunities are afforded for attacking
defenceless people, of breaking into their fields, and, in general, of
losing its _natural respect for human beings_; and as such conditions
seldom exist in Africa, from the elephant chiefly inhabiting districts
devoid of population on account of their unhealthiness, the rogue,
properly so called, is seldom met with, though the solitary bull, the
same animal in an earlier stage, is common enough.”
Drummond, it will be observed, clings to the superstition of man’s
recognized primacy in nature; and if he had declared that his
appointment to this position was handed down by tradition among
elephants from the time of Adam and the garden of Eden, the absurdity
could scarcely be greater. In what possible way can a wild beast that
has not been hunted know anything about a man, except that he is an
unaccountable-looking little creature, who walks like a bird, and has a
very singular odor?
A rogue who infested the Balaghat District is described by Baker as a
captured elephant who after a considerable detention escaped to the
forest again. “Domestication,” he remarks, “seems to have sharpened its
intellect and exaggerated its powers of mischief and cunning.... There
was an actual love of homicide in this animal.” He continually changed
place, so that no one could foretell his whereabouts, and approached
those whom he intended to destroy with such fatal skill that they never
suspected his presence until it was too late. He made the public roads
impassable. By day and night the inhabitants of villages lying far
apart heard the screams which accompanied his attack, and immediately
this monster was in the midst of them, killing men, women, and
children. At length Colonel Bloomfield, aided by the whole population,
succeeded in hunting the beast down. “Maddened by pursuit and wounds,
he turned to charge,” and as he lowered his trunk when closing, a heavy
rifle ball struck him in the depression just above its base, and he
fell dead.
Cunning as this elephant was, his actions displayed that lack of
inventiveness which Sanderson charges against the race; and this defect
saved the lives of many who would otherwise have been killed. If any
one was out of reach in a small tree, the rogue never thought of
getting at him by shaking its trunk. Both Sir Samuel and Captain R. N.
G. Baker report having seen an elephant butt at a _Balanites Egyptiaca_
when it was three feet in diameter, so that a man “must have held on
exceedingly tight to avoid a fall.” It is certain that these animals
are accustomed to dislodge various edibles by this means. But a change
in circumstances prevented the Balaghat brute from resorting to a
well-known act which would have lengthened considerably the list of his
victims.
Places in Africa where elephants once abounded now contain none. They
are less subject to epidemics than many species, but suffer from
climatic disorders and the attacks of parasites. This, however, is
not the reason for their disappearance from certain localities. They
have fallen before firearms, or migrated in fear of them. “From my own
observation,” says Baker, “I have concluded that wild animals of all
kinds will withstand the dangers of traps, pit-falls, fire, and the
usual methods employed for their destruction by savages, but will be
speedily cleared out of an extensive district by firearms.”
A field naturalist coming from Africa to India, or any other part of
Asia, would be at once struck by the inferior size, darker color,
smaller ears, less massive tusks (rudimentary in the female), and other
structural differences presented by _Elephas Indicus_. Likewise,
with the forest life, browsing habits, and nocturnal ways of this
species, “there is little doubt that there is not an elephant ten feet
high at the shoulder in India,” says Sanderson. If a stranger took to
elephant-hunting, his opinion of their character in that country would
probably depend upon the escapes he made from being killed. There is,
however, something yet to be said upon the subject of Asiatic rogues
that, so far as the author is aware, has escaped the attention of
those who have described them. Such creatures as those of Kakánkōta,
Balaghat, Jubbulpūr, and the Begapore canal, are extremely exceptional,
if what they actually did be alone considered, but there is nothing
to show that they were very extraordinary in temper or traits of
character. The first seems to have been undoubtedly insane; the others,
however, gave no indications of mental alienation. They were simply
vicious like great numbers of their kind, and the accidents of life
enabled them to show it more conspicuously than is often the case.
Whatever may be thought of the influence of descent in these instances,
it is certain that a criminal class cannot develop itself among
elephants, and that those murderous brutes referred to, do not stand
alone.