the records in the Adjutant General’s Office, that brings out several
points relating to the character of vicious elephants. The statements
made seem to be incredible, but those who have made a study of the
subject will recall many examples of desperation, tenacity of life, and
ferocity in elephants, that may serve to modify doubt; more especially
in connection with the effects of wounds in the head, which is so
formed that half of it might be shot away without an animal suffering
otherwise than from shock and loss of blood.
To C. SEALY, Magistrate, etc.
Sir:--I have the honor to state that on the 24th instant, at
midnight, I received information that two elephants of very uncommon
size had made their appearance within a few hundred yards of the
cantonment and close to the village, the inhabitants of which were
in the greatest alarm. I lost no time in despatching to the place
all the public and private elephants we had in pursuit of them,
and at daybreak on the 25th, was informed that their very superior
size and apparent fierceness had rendered all attempts at their
seizure unavailing; and that the most experienced mahout I had was
dangerously hurt--the elephant he rode having been struck to the
ground by one of the wild ones, which, with its companion, had
then adjourned to a large sugar-cane field adjoining the village.
I immediately ordered the guns (a section of a light battery) to
this place, but wishing in the first place, to try every means
for catching the animals, I assembled the inhabitants of the
neighborhood, and with the assistance of the resident Rajah caused
two deep pits to be prepared at the edge of the cane field in which
our elephants and the people contrived, with the utmost dexterity, to
retain the wild ones during the day. When these pits were reported
ready, we repaired to the spot, and they were cleverly driven into
them. But, unfortunately, one of the pits did not prove to be
sufficiently deep, and the one who escaped from it, in the presence
of many witnesses, assisted his companion out of the other pit with
his trunk. Both were, however, with much exertion, brought back into
the cane, and as no particular symptoms of vice or fierceness had
appeared in the course of the day, I was anxious to make another
effort to capture them. The beldars, therefore, were set to work to
deepen the old and prepare new pits against daybreak, when I proposed
to make the final attempt. About four o’clock yesterday, however,
they burst through all my guards, and making for a village about
three miles distant, reached it with such rapidity that the horsemen
who galloped before them, had not time to apprise the inhabitants
of their danger, and I regret to say that one poor man was torn
limb from limb, a child trodden to death, and two women hurt. Their
destruction now became absolutely necessary, and as they showed
no disposition to quit the village where their mischief had been
done, we had time to bring up the four-pound pieces of artillery
[these events took place in 1809] from which they received several
rounds, both ball and abundance of grape. The larger of the two was
soon brought to the ground by a round shot in the head; but after
remaining there about a quarter of an hour, apparently lifeless, he
got up again as vigorous as ever, and the desperation of both at this
period exceeds all description. They made repeated charges on the
guns, and if it had not been for the uncommon bravery and steadiness
of the artillery-men, who more than once turned them off with shots
in the head and body when within a very few paces of them, many
dreadful casualties must have occurred. We were obliged to desist
for want of ammunition, and before a fresh supply could be obtained,
the animals quitted the village, and though streaming with blood
from a hundred wounds, proceeded with a rapidity I had no idea of
towards Hazarebaugh. They were at length brought up by the horsemen
and our elephants, within a short distance of a crowded bazaar, and
ultimately, after many renewals of most formidable and ferocious
attacks on the guns, gave up the contest with their lives.
The western half of those central Indian highlands called locally the
Mykal, Máhádeo, and Sátpúra hills, is a famous haunt for elephants. In
this wild birthplace of the streams that pour themselves into the Bay
of Bengal and the Arabian Gulf, these creatures wander in comparative
security. The Gónd, Kól, and Sántál aborigines furnish the best
trackers extant, except, perhaps, those mysterious Bygá or Bhúmiá,
whose knowledge of woodcraft is unequalled. These small, dark, silent
men have no sort of respect for an elephant’s mind or character, but
they worship it from fear; they adore the animal because they know
enough of its disposition to be always apprehensive of its doing more
than it generally does.
Most of these great timber districts are under the supervision of
officers, and the camps of their parties are widely scattered through
large and lonely tracts of woodland. If one of these is come upon by a
herd of elephants while its occupants are absent, a striking trait in
this creature’s character will almost surely be exhibited. No monkey is
more mischievous than one of these big brutes, and when the men return
they probably find that nothing which could be displaced, marred, or
broken, has escaped their attention. Elephants are also very curious;
anything unusual is apt to attract them, and if they do not become
alarmed at it, the gravity with which a novel object is examined, and
the queer, awkward way in which these beasts manifest interest or
amusement, is singular enough. Sometimes their performances under the
incitement of curiosity or malicious mischief are decidedly unpleasant.
A wild elephant came out of the woods one night and pawed a hole in
the side of Sanderson’s tent. Hornaday says he made a little door in
the wall at the head of his bed, so that he could bolt at once in case
of a visitation like this. People living in such places, and in frail
houses, are exposed to another contingency. Elephants are very subject
to panics, and as they often arise from causes that should not disturb
such a creature at all, no one can tell when a herd may not rush off
together, and go screaming through the wood, breaking down everything
but the big trees before them.
Sooner or later, a hunting party’s progress will be arrested by the
halt of their guide: he crouches down in his tracks and looks intently,
as it appears, at nothing. What he sees would be nothing to eyes
less practised, but it is an elephant’s spoor. If one were in Africa,
the trackers would now smooth off a little spot of ground, make a few
incantations, and throw magic dice to find out all about this animal.
But here nothing of that kind is done, and yet the guide will follow
the trail unerringly, and the hunter may count upon being brought to
his game. “When you know,” says Captain A. W. Drayson, “that the giant
of the forest is not inferior in the senses of hearing and smell to any
creature in creation, and has besides intelligence enough to know that
you are his enemy, and also for what purpose you have come, it becomes
a matter of great moment how, when, and where you approach him.”
Elephants, unless they have some definite end in view, stroll about
in the most desultory, and, if one is following them, the most
exasperating manner. Their big round footprints go up hill and down
dale in utterly aimless and devious meanderings. Here the brute stops
to dig a tuber or break a branch, there for the purpose of tearing down
a clump of bamboos, in another place with no object in view except to
drive its tusks into a bank. Sportsmen often spend a day and night upon
their trail.
No one can foresee the issue of a contest with an elephant. It may fall
to a single shot, but no matter how brave and cool and well instructed
the hunter may be, how stanch are his gun-bearers, how perfect his
weapons and the skill with which they are used, when that wavering
trunk becomes fixed in his direction, and the huge head turns toward
him, his breath is in his nostrils. More than likely the animal, whose
form is almost invisible in the half-lights of these forests, is aware
of his pursuer’s presence before the latter sees him, and if he has
remained, it is because he means mischief. Then it may well happen
with the sportsman as it did with Arlett, Wedderburn, Krieger, McLane,
Wahlberg, and many another.
It stands to reason that a herd is harder to approach without being
discovered than a single elephant would be. The chances that the hunter
will be seen are greater, and their scattered positions make it more
probable that some of them will get his wind.
Occasionally an old bull who despises that part of mankind who do
not possess improved rifles, and knows perfectly well the difference
between an Englishman and a native, will take possession of some
unfortunate ryot’s millet field or cane patch, and hold it by right of
conquest against all attempts to dislodge him. Crowds revile the animal
from a safe distance, and a village shikári comes with a small-bored
matchlock and shoots pieces of old iron and pebbles at him from the
nearest position where it is mathematically certain that he will be
secure. As for the marauder, he stays where he is until everything is
eaten or destroyed, or until he gets tired.
The amount actually consumed by elephants forms but a small portion of
the loss which agriculturists sustain from their forays. They always
trample down and ruin far more than they eat. Both in India and Ceylon,
various districts suffered so severely in this way that government gave
rewards for all elephants killed. This has now been discontinued in
both countries, but in many places where the herds are protected their
numbers are increasing, so that the same necessity for thinning them
out will again arise.
All over the cultivated portions of India platforms are erected in
fields, where children by day, and men at night, endeavor to frighten
away these invaders, together with the birds, antelopes, bears,
monkeys, and wild hogs, that ravage their crops. No very signal success
can be said to attend these efforts, and when a herd of elephants makes
its appearance, they simply keep at a distance from the stages, and
otherwise do as they please.
Plundering bands survey the ground, study localities, go on their
_duroras_ like a troop of Dacoits, and are organized for the time being
in a rude way, under the influence of what Professor Romanes calls “the
collective instinct.”
Hunters favorably situated can easily see this. A far-off trumpet now
and then announces the herd’s advance through the forest, but as they
approach the point where possible danger is to be apprehended, no token
of their presence is given, and its first indication is the appearance
of a scout,--not a straggler who has got in front by accident, but an
animal upon whom the others depend, and who is there to see that all
is safe. Everything about the creature, its actions and attitudes, the
way it steps, listens, and searches the air with slowly moving trunk,
speaks for itself of wariness, knowledge of what might occur, and
an appreciation of the position it occupies; no doubt, to a certain
extent, of a sense of responsibility. When this scout feels satisfied
that no danger is impending, it moves on, at the same time assuring
those who yet remain hidden that they may follow, by one of the many
significant sounds that elephants make.
A number of narratives describe events as they are likely then
to occur, but they are merely hunting stories, and so far as the
writer’s memory serves, do not bring out the animal’s traits in any
special way. It would appear, however, that the behavior of elephants
who unexpectedly meet with Europeans in those places where all the
resistance previously experienced came from farmers themselves, is very
different from what it is in the former case. Then they are said to be
difficult to get rid of, and when driven away from one point by shouts,
horns, drums, and the firing of guns, they rush away to another part
of the plantations, and continue their depredations. No such passive
resistance as this is attempted when English sportsmen are upon the
spot. Elephants discover their presence immediately. Upon the first
explosion of a heavy rifle, the alarm is sounded from different parts
of the field, and the herd betakes itself to flight without any notion
of halting by the way. Their dominant idea is to get clear of those
premises as soon as possible.
“The elephant,” says Andersson, “has a very expressive organ of voice.
The sounds which he utters have been distinguished by his Asiatic
keepers into three kinds. The first is very shrill, and is produced by
blowing through his trunk. This is indicative of pleasure. The second,
made by the mouth, is a low note expressive of want; and the third,
proceeding from the throat, is a terrific roar of anger or revenge.”
Sanderson seems to think that these discriminations are somewhat
fanciful. He remarks that “elephants make use of a great variety of
sounds in communicating with one another, and in expressing their
wants and feelings.” But he adds that, while “some are made by the
trunk and some by the throat, the conjunctures in which either means
of expression is employed, cannot be strictly classified, as pleasure,
fear, want, and other emotions are indicated by either.” Leveson, on
the contrary, gives a list of these intonations, and describes the
manner in which they are produced. So also does Tennant; and Baker adds
another sound to those before given; “a growl,” this writer calls it,
and he says that “it is exactly like the rumbling of distant thunder.”
Undoubtedly these animals express their thoughts and feelings
intelligibly by the voice, as also through facial expressions, and
by means of such gestures as they are capable of making. It has been
before said that although the elephant’s face is half covered up, and
there are no muscles either in his case or in that of any other animal,
whose primary function is to express mental or emotional states, his
physiognomy may be in the highest degree significant.
“The courage of elephants,” writes Captain Drayson, “seems to
fluctuate in a greater degree than that of man. Sometimes a herd is
unapproachable from savageness; sometimes the animals are the greatest
curs in creation.” What is called boldness varies considerably in
different species, among members of the same species, and in the
same individuals at different times. It is a quality, that, like all
others, is double-sided, certain elements belonging to the mind, and
the residue to the body. Elephants are nervous; that is to say,
their nerve centres--the ganglia in which energy is stored up--are
constitutionally in a state of more or less unstable equilibrium, so
that stimulus, whether of external origin, or initiated centrically,
is apt to produce explosive effects. Courage depends upon physical
and mental constitution, upon specializations in race, training, and
structure, upon differences in personal experience and organization.
So much as this may be said with confidence, but on what grounds,
biological or psychological, is it possible for Professor Romanes
to assert that the elephant seems usually to be “actuated by the
most magnanimous of feelings”? Magnanimity belongs to the rarest and
loftiest type of human character: how did an elephant come by it? The
obligations of mental and moral congruity are not less binding than
those of physical fitness. No one nowadays draws an elephant with
a human head; but a beast with self-respect, courage, refinement,
sympathy, and charity enough to be magnanimous, does not seem to
outrage any sense of propriety. Works like those of Watson (“Reasoning
Power of Animals”), Broderip (“Zoölogical Recreations”), Bingley
(“Animal Biography”), Swainson (“Habits and Instincts of Animals”),
too often interpret facts so that they will fit preconceived opinions.
There is a story, for example, by Captain Shipp, of how, during the
siege of Bhurtpore, an elephant pushed another one into a well because
he had appropriated his bucket. Tales like this resemble pictures
in which the design and execution are both weak, and which depend
for their effect upon accessories illegitimately introduced into the
composition. Probably a large part of the present inhabitants of the
earth have seen animals who, while contending for some possession,
acted in a similar manner; but they were not elephants, nor were the
circumstances of a well and a siege at hand to set them off, and
produce an impression that the actual incident does not justify. The
grief of captive elephants over their situation is a subject upon which
many fine remarks have been made. Colonel Yule (“Embassy to Ava”)
states that numbers die from this cause alone; but _yaarba’hd_, either
in its dropsical or atrophic form, is what chiefly proves fatal to
them, and this is brought on by the sudden and violent interruption
of their natural way of life. According to Strachan, Sanderson, and
other experts, the disorder is due to an overthrow of functional
balance; something which is sure to induce disease whenever it occurs.
Sterility, temporary failure of milk in females with calves, together
with the various effects already mentioned, may be referred to the
same cause. It is not said that elephants never die of grief; still
less, that this is impossible. Any animal highly organized enough to
feel intense and persistent sorrow may perish. Pain, either physical
or mental, is intimately connected with waste of tissue and paralysis
of reparative action. Bain’s formula that “states of pleasure are
concomitant with an increase, and states of pain with a decrease, of
some, or all, of the vital functions,” is not strictly correct as it
stands; still the truth it is intended to convey remains indisputable.
Grant-Allen (“Physiological Æsthetics”) defines pleasure as a
“concomitant of the healthy action of any or all of the organs or
members supplied with afferent cerebro-spinal nerves, to an extent not
exceeding the ordinary powers of reparation possessed by the system.”
Grief, when intense, reverses this, makes normal function impossible,
palsies the viscera, and impairs or perverts those nutritive processes
upon which life directly depends. But the profound and abiding sorrow
this race cherishes in servitude is a romance. There is nothing to show
the regret and longing which have been imagined. Elephants struggle
for a while against coercion, and then forget. They fail to take
advantage of opportunities for escape, and when they do, the fugitives
are recaptured more easily than they were taken in the first place.
Instances have often occurred of their voluntary return after a long
absence. In the beginning, it is the finest animals who perish. They
kill themselves in their struggles, or die of disease. Subsequently, it
is said that domestication lengthens average life. This must, however,
be one of those blank assertions made so commonly about wild beasts;
since, independently of any other objection, it is evident that the
statement, in order to be worth anything, should rest upon the basis of
a wide comparison between the relative longevities of free and captive
animals, and vital statistics of this kind, not only have not been
tabulated, but it is impossible that they should have been collected.
Colonel Pollok remarks that “at all times, this is a wandering race,
and consumes so much, and wastes so much, that no single forest could
long support a large number of such occupants.” Livingstone, Forsyth,
and others have, however, noted the fact that little or no permanent
injury to extensive woodlands was wrought by these animals. They do not
overturn trees, as is popularly believed, and still less do they uproot
them. Elephants bend down stems by pressure with their foreheads, and
they go loitering about breaking branches, till the place looks as
if a whirlwind had passed over it, but these devastations are of a
kind soon repaired. In the forests of India they have never met with
such adversaries, or been exposed to the same dangers, as the species
encountered on the “Dark Continent.” Some Indian tribes worshipped,
and all feared them. They passed their lives for the most part in
peace, finding food plentiful, ruining much, and finishing nothing.
Pitfalls were few and far between; no weighted darts fell upon them as
they passed beneath the boughs, no pigmy savage stole behind as they
leaned against a tree boll and woke the echoes of the wood with deep,
slow-drawn, and far-resounding snores, to thrust a broad-bladed spear
into their bodies, and leave it there to lacerate and kill his victim
slowly. Neither were herds driven over precipices, nor into chasms, nor
did hordes of capering barbarians come against them with assagais, and
scream, while pricking them to death,--
“Oh Chief! Chief! we have come to kill you,
Oh Chief! Chief! many more shall die.
The gods have said it.”
All this was common throughout Africa, while in Asia the natives seldom
aggressed against elephants except in the way of capturing them. It is
true that this was done awkwardly, and often caused injury or death;
but that was unintentional, and as a rule they roamed unmolested among
the solitudes of nature.
Existence had its drawbacks, however. Elephants were not eaten in Asia,
and not hunted for their ivory to any extent, but they were used in
war, and the state of no native prince could be complete unless he had
an elephant to ride on and several caparisoned animals for show. Owing
to these needs and fashions the animals were captured extensively. In
many places at present small parties of men, often only two or three,
go on foot into the forests as their predecessors did ages ago, each
with a small bag of provisions, and a green hide rope capable of being
considerably stretched. An elephant’s track is almost as explicit and
full of information to them as a passport or descriptive list, and
when they have found the right one, it is patiently followed till the
beast that made it is discovered. Then in the great majority of cases
its fate is fixed. Flight, concealment, resistance, are in vain. In
some “inevitable hour” a noose of plaited thongs that cannot be broken
is slipped around one of the hind feet, and a turn or two quickly
taken about a tree. A high-bred elephant gives up when he finds that
the first fierce struggle for freedom is unavailing, but the meerga’s
resistance lasts longer. After one leg has been secured it is easy to
fetter both, and then the captors camp in front of the animal in order
to accustom it to their presence. By degrees they loosen its bonds,
feed and pacify it. When anger is over, and its terrors are dissipated,
these men lead their captive off to a market at some great fair, and
they lie about what they have done and what the elephant did, with a
fertility of invention, a height and length and breadth of mendacity
which it would be vain to expect to find exceeded in this imperfect
state of existence.