serve man in high latitudes, where he has to provide against the
winter's cold. The camel is an even more striking instance in which the
value of the creature depends upon climatal peculiarities. It is
peculiarly fitted, by its ancestral training and development, for the
use of men who dwell in arid countries. In the olden days of the later
Tertiary epoch, creatures akin to the camels appear to have been widely
distributed, and were probably adapted to considerable variations of
environment. Within the time of which we know something by history,
these forms have been limited to the arid districts of southwestern
Asia and northern Africa. It is not certain that we know the originally
wild form of either of the two species, the double-humped or
single-humped camels. Wild members of each exist, but they may be the
descendants of the domesticated forms. It seems probable that long
before the building of the Pyramids the people of the deserts had
learned how to profit from the very peculiar qualities of this
strangely provided beast, which in several distinct ways is singularly
fitted to serve the needs of man in arid lands. The large and
well-padded foot of this creature is well adapted for treading a
surface unsoftened by vegetation. Its peculiar stomach enables it to
store water in such a manner that it can go for days without drink. In
the humps upon its back, as in natural pack-saddles, it may harvest a
share of the nutriment which it obtains from occasional good
pasturages, the store being laid away in the form of fat which may
return to the blood when the creature would otherwise starve. So
important have these peculiarities been found by men who have
domesticated the camel, that on them have rested many of the most
interesting features of race development in the history of our kind. In
the territories along the eastern and southern shores of the
Mediterranean, and in a large part of southern and central Asia, the
camel has done service to man which elsewhere has been performed by
sheep, cattle, and horses. In those parts of the world the share which
these domesticated animals have had in the development of man has been
relatively small. The camel has given the strength for burdens, hair
for clothing, and often flesh to the needy men of the desert.
[Illustration: The Halt in the Desert at Night--The Story Teller]
Although long a captive, and for ages, perhaps, the most serviceable of
all the creatures which man has won from the wilds, the camel is still
only partly domesticated, having never acquired even the small measure
of affection for his master which we find in the other herbivorous
animals which have been won to the service of man. The obedience which
he renders is but a dull submission to inevitable toil. The
intelligence which he shows is very limited, and, so far as I can judge
from the accounts of those who have observed him, there is but little
variation in his mental qualities. As a whole, the creature appears to
be innately the dullest and least improvable of all our servitors.
The fact is, this animal belongs to an ancient and lowly type of
mammals characterized by relatively small brains, and therefore of weak
intelligence; but, for its singular serviceableness in drought-ridden
countries, it would probably have been hunted off the earth by the
early men, as have been many other remnants of the ancient life.
[Illustration: Camels Feeding]
It is somewhat characteristic of the older forms of animals, those
which took shape in the earlier Tertiary periods, that they are less
variable than those which acquired their characteristics in times
nearer our own. It is a fact well known to the students of
paleontology, that species and genera which have been long on the
earth are apt to become in a way rigid as regards their qualities of
body and mind. It is an interesting fact that, although the camel can
readily be transplanted to many other parts of the world, where the
physiographic conditions are similar to those of the realm where he has
served man so well, he has never been thoroughly successful except in
the regions where he has been in use for ages. In the desert regions of
the Cordilleras of America, in South Africa, and in Australia, various
experiments go to show that the creature could be perfectly reconciled
to its environment. Many years ago a lot of camels were brought to the
valley of the Rio Grande with a view to their utilization in that
region, which closely resembles the desert countries about the
Mediterranean. These animals were thoroughly successful in meeting the
climatal conditions of the region. They proved as strong and as fertile
as in their natural realms. Although it is said they survive to the
present day, they have never been of any service to the people.
[Illustration: Carrying the Sugar Cane in Harvest--Egypt]
Although, as before noted, the camel has a certain value for other
purposes than conveying burdens, these subsidiary uses are so far
limited that the creature is not likely to retain a place in the world
after his service in caravans is no longer called for. The rapid
recivilization of northern Africa, leading as it does to the development
of a railway system in that region, promises to displace this creature
from his most trodden ways. It seems likely that the other portions of
the desert lands in the old world will soon be brought under the same
civilizing influences, the nomadic tribes reduced to a stationary habit
of life, and the commerce effected in the modern manner. When this
change is brought about, this old-time animal, which but for the care of
man would have probably long since passed away, will be likely, save
so far as it may be preserved through motives of scientific interest, to
join the great array of vanished species.
[Illustration: Camels along the Sea at Twilight]
It affords a pleasant contrast to turn from the consideration of the
camels to a study of the elephants. The difference in the measure of
attractiveness of the two forms is very great, and depends upon facts of
remarkable interest. Unlike the camel--which, as we have seen, is the
last survivor of an ancient lineage, represented by but two species, and
these limited to a small part of the world--the elephant, at the time
when man appears to have taken shape, seems to have existed on all the
continental lands except Australia, and to have been in a state of
singular prosperity. As is often the case with other vigorous genera of
mammals, the species were adapted to a very great variety of climates,
and were fitted to endure tropic heat as well as arctic cold.
The group of elephants is first known to us in the early part of
Tertiary time. From its first appearance on our stage it seems to have
been successful in a high measure, and this probably by reason of its
possession of the remarkable invention of the trunk--a prolonged and
marvellously flexible nose which serves in the manner of an arm and
hand for gathering food.
When we first find traces of mankind in the records of the rocks, in
what appears to be an age just anterior to the Glacial epoch, the
elephant had passed the experimental stages of its development and
was firmly established as the king of beasts. In his adult form he
had nothing to fear from any of the lower animals, and by the
organization of herds it is probable that even the young were
tolerably safe from assault. Until the early races of men had attained
a considerable skill in the use of weapons, the great beasts were
probably safe from human attack. We may well believe that primitive
savages shunned them as unconquerable. As early, perhaps, as the
closing stages of the Glacial epoch in Europe, we find evidences which
pretty clearly show that the folk of that land, probably belonging to
some race other than our own, had attained a state of the warlike arts
in which they could venture to hunt this creature.
The species of elephant which was hunted by the early men of Europe,
and perhaps also by those in Asia and America as well, was a greater
and, at least in appearance, a more formidable monster than the living
species of Asia or Africa. He was on the average taller and probably
bulkier than any of his living kindred. The tusks were large and
curved in a curious scimitar form. Adding to the might of its aspect
was a vast covering of hair, which on the neck appears to have had the
form of a mane. This covering must have greatly increased the
apparent size of the creature, which no doubt appeared about twice as
large as any of our modern elephants which are nearly hairless.
Although the perils of this ancient chase must have been great, the
triumphs were equally so, and to a people who lived by hunting, most
profitable; a single animal would furnish more food than scores of
the lesser beasts such as the reindeer.
It seems probable that the ancient northern elephant continued in
existence in North America down to the time when this continent was
inhabited by man. It can hardly be doubted that the very ancient human
beings, whose remains are preserved to us beneath the lava streams of
California, dwelt on the continent along with the mammoth. In
excavations which I have made at Big Bone Lick in Kentucky, where a
group of saline springs emerges at the bottom of a valley, there were
disclosed a very great number of skeletons of this great elephant,
commingled with the bones of one or two smaller forms of the related
genus, the mastodon. At a slightly higher level was the multitude of
remains belonging to an extinct species of bison which came just before
our so-called buffalo, while near the surface of the ground was found
the waste of the creatures which were in the field when it was first
seen by the white men. A very careful search failed to reveal any trace
of man until the uppermost level was attained. The facts, which cannot
well be discussed here, have led me to the conclusion that only a few
thousand years can have elapsed since the mammoth and the mastodon
plentifully abounded in North America; but I am forced to doubt whether
our savages were here in time to make acquaintance with these animals.
It is not certain that the extermination of the great northern
elephant or mammoth even in the Old World came about through the
action of man. It is possible that the death was due to more natural
causes, such as the change of climate which attended the decline of
the Glacial period, or to the attacks of some insect enemy like the
tsetze fly of South Africa, which occasionally brings destruction to
cattle in that part of the world. On the whole, however, it seems
most probable that the extermination of this noble beast is to be
accounted among the brutal triumphs of mankind, perhaps as the first
of the long tale of destructions which he has inflicted upon his
fellow-creatures. However this may be, it is clear that at the dawn
of civilization the species of the genus elephas had become limited
to that part of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara,
and to the portion of Asia east of the Persian Gulf and south of
China. The remnant consisted of two species: the African form, on the
average the larger of the two, a fierce and scarcely domesticable
creature; and the Asiatic, a milder-natured species which alone has
been to any extent brought into the service of man.
It is not certain when or where elephants were first reduced to
domestication. In the dawn of history we find them used to enhance the
state of princes and for the purposes of war. It seems possible that
in this early day the African as well as the Asiatic species was
tamed, at least to the point where they could be made to serve in
battle. We can hardly believe that all these animals which were at the
command of Hannibal and the other generals of North Africa, came from
the Asiatic realm. The fact that in modern times the species which
dwells south of the Sahara has not been turned to the uses of man, may
be accounted for by the lowly estate of the native people in that part
of the world, and the lack of need for such creatures in the economic
conditions of the Aryan folk who have settled along the shores and in
the southern part of that continent.
The relations of man to the elephant are more peculiar than those which
he has formed with any other domesticated animal. Although the creature
will breed in captivity, its reproduction in that state is exceptional,
and it is many years before the offspring are fit for any service. It
is indeed about thirty years before the creature is sufficiently adult
to attain a good measure of strength and endurance. It has therefore
been the habit of the people who avail themselves of this admirable
beast to use the captures which they make in the wilderness. It is a
most interesting and exceptional fact that these captive elephants,
though bred in perfect freedom and provided with none of those
inherited instincts so essentially a part of the value of our other
domesticated quadrupeds, become helpful to man and attached to him in a
way which is characteristic of none other of our ancient companions
except the dog. It is safe to say that the Asiatic elephant is the most
innately domesticable, and the best fitted by nature for companionship
with man, of all our great quadrupeds. The qualities of mind which in
our other domesticated quadrupeds have been slowly developed by
thousands of years of selection and intercourse with our kind, are in
this creature a part of its wild estate.
It appears from trustworthy anecdotes that the Asiatic elephants in a
few months of captivity acquire the rules of conduct which it is
necessary to impose upon them. The speediness of this intellectual
subjugation may be judged from the fact that, after a short term of
domestication, they will take a willing and intelligent part in
capturing their kindred of the wilderness, showing in this work little
or no disposition to rejoin the wild herds. In the case of no other
animal do we find anything like such an immediate adhesion to the ways
of civilization. We have to account for this eminent peculiarity of the
elephant on the supposition, which appears to be thoroughly justified,
that the creature has, even in its wild state, a type of intelligence
and instincts more nearly like those of men than is the case with any
other wild mammal, an affinity with human quality which is, perhaps,
only approached by certain species of birds. It appears from the
observations of naturalists that the family or tribe of wild elephants
is a distinct and highly sympathetic community. The grade and value of
the friendly feeling which prevails among them may be judged by the
fact that, when one of the males becomes lost or is driven away from
its associates, it does not seem to be able to join any other tribe,
but becomes a "rogue," or solitary individual, and in this state
develops a morose and furious temper.
There are many well-attested stories which serve to show that wild
elephants have a kind of intelligence which indicates a certain
constructive capacity. Of these, perhaps the best are the instances in
which the creatures have been caught in pitfalls, made by digging a
hole in the paths of the wilderness which they are accustomed to
follow, the surface being covered with a frail platform so arranged as
to conceal the excavation. When one of a tribe is caught in the trap,
the others, if time allows before the hunters come to the ground, will
in an ingenious way release him. I doubt if the most practicable
manner of effecting this will occur at once to the reader. The easiest
plan may seem to drag the captive from the pit by sheer strength, but
as the hole is deep and has vertical sides, the elephants contrive a
better way. They bring bits of timber, which they throw into the
pitfall, the captive treads them down until he is elevated to a
position whence he can escape from his prison.
The intelligence of the wild elephant is probably in good part to be
accounted for by the fact that the creature possesses in its trunk an
instrument which is admirably contrived to execute the behests of an
intelligent will. It is easy for us to see how, in the case of man, the
hands have served to develop the intelligence by providing him with
means whereby he could do a great variety of things which demanded
thought and afforded education. The elephant is the only large mammal
which has ever acquired a serviceable addition to the body such as the
trunk affords. In their ordinary life the trunk does almost as varied
work as the human arm. With it they can express emotions in a remarkable
way; they caress their young, gather their food by a great variety of
movements, or defend themselves from assailants. To the naturalist who
has come to perceive the close relations between bodily structure and
mental endowments, it is not surprising to find that these creatures
have attained a quality of mind which is found nowhere else among the
mammals except in man and in some of his kindred, the apes.
The most peculiar mental quality of the elephant, a feature which
separates him even from the dog, is the rational way in which he will
do certain kinds of mechanical work. He appears to have an immediate
sense as to the effects of his actions, which we find elsewhere only
among human beings. From a great body of well-attested observations,
showing what may be called the logical quality of the mind of these
creatures, I may be allowed to select a few stories which have a
singular denotative value. An acquaintance of mine, a British officer
who had served long in India, told me that in taking artillery over
very difficult roads, certain of the abler elephants could be trusted
to walk behind each piece, where they would in a fashion control its
movements, steadying or lifting it as the occasion demanded without
any directions from the driver.
[Illustration: An Indian Elephant]
Elephants can be trained to pile up sticks of timber, such as railway
ties, placing the layers alternately in opposite directions, as is the
custom in such work. There is an excellent and well-attested story of
an elephant who, without a driver, was bearing a stick of timber
through a narrow wood path. Meeting a man on horseback, and
perceiving that the way was not wide enough for both himself and the
oncomer, the sagacious animal deliberately backed his huge body into
the chaparral so as to clear the way, and then trumpeted as if to
signal the horseman that the path was free.
The emotions as well as the intelligence of elephants are singularly
like those of human kind. It is said by those who know them well that
if when in their stubborn fits they are brutally overborne, they are
apt to die of what seems to be pure chagrin. Their states of grief,
despair, and rage much resemble those which are exhibited by violent
children or men unaccustomed to control. Their affections and
animosities have also a curious human cast. They readily form
attachments which appear to be quite as enduring as those exhibited by
dogs, and their memory of injuries remains quick for years after they
have received the harm. Well-verified anecdotes showing the likeness
of these emotional qualities to our own exist in such numbers that it
would be easy to fill a volume with them. They are, however, not
necessary to show the likeness of the creature to ourselves. This is
sufficiently exhibited by their daily behavior under domestication. In
noting this we should remember that the male elephant is the only
large mammal the males of which it has proved safe to use in the
ordinary work of life. Even our bulls and stallions, though they
belong to species which have been domesticated for thousands of years,
are so violent and untrustworthy as to be of little value except for
breeding purposes. Bulls, even of the tamer breeds, are a constant
menace to the lives of their masters; yet an adult male elephant
recently made captive may, except when seriously diseased, be trusted
to obey the mere signals of the driver, who has no such control over
him as the bit affords in the case of horses. The creature has the
strength to overcome all control save that of a moral nature. To this
he submits in a way which is only equalled by our well-bred dogs.
As yet the utility of the elephant to man has, measured by his
qualities, been but small. The creature has a marvellous strength,
great intelligence, and remarkable docility. In proportion to the
power which he can apply to a task, he is not an expensive animal to
maintain. He can endure a considerable range of climate, and enjoys a
tolerable immunity from disease. The reason for the relatively
inconsiderable use of these creatures is probably to be found in the
fact that they are not adapted for ordinary draught purposes, nor are
they well suited to the needs of the caravan, for which the camel or
the pack-mule is much better fitted. In ancient warfare, before the
invention of gunpowder, elephants carrying archers or javelin-men upon
their backs were greatly valued for the effect of their charge against
an enemy and for the fright with which they inspired horses. Against
the unsteady ranks of Oriental armies they were often most efficient
in breaking a line of battle. Even the Roman troops, when they first
encountered them and before they knew how to meet their charges, found
them very formidable. It was soon learned that if their onset was
stoutly resisted, they were likely to become unmanageable in the
uproar of the fight, and to do as much damage to friends as to foes.
It is only in certain peculiar tasks that, in modern days, the
elephants have any economic value, and in the most of this work their
strength is likely to be replaced by various engines.
The two existing species of elephants are, as before remarked, the
survivors of a long lineage, represented in the geological record by
the remains of many extinct forms. Some of these lost species were far
smaller than those of to-day; one at least was no larger than our
heavier horses. If by the breeder's art the existing varieties could be
caused so to change as to give us once again this relatively diminutive
form, the creature would be sure to find a place of importance in our
ordinary arts. The trouble is that the very long life of this animal is
naturally associated with a slow growth. It requires indeed almost the
lifetime of a generation to bring the individual to an adult age. It is
therefore not surprising that, as the wild forms can readily be won to
domestication, these creatures have not been the subject of any of those
interesting processes of selection which have so far affected for the
better the characteristics of nearly all the other domesticated animals.
In every other regard than those mentioned above, the elephant appears
to be an excellent subject for improvement by choice in breeding. The
individuals vary much as regards their physical and mental qualities.
Probably no other wild mammal exhibits such differences in the mental
features as does this highly intellectual creature. The physical
individuality does not seem to be as striking as the mental, but even
here we note a range, at least as regards size, which is unusual in the
wild forms bred under similar conditions. The general elasticity of the
group is shown by the considerable differences which may be traced in
the herds which occupy different parts of the field over which the
species range. As yet these local peculiarities have not been carefully
studied; but from an examination of the tusks in the ivory warehouse at
the docks in London, I have found that those shipped from particular
ports in Africa and Asia differed both in form and texture, so that
the experts were able to tell from which district they came. The
evidence, in a word, appears to show that the creature tends to vary;
and it is a safe presumption that the forms would prove as responsive
to the breeder's art as those of our horses, cattle, sheep, or dogs.
As a whole, the elephant has been almost as little associated with the
life of our own race as the camel. Neither of these creatures has ever
played any considerable part in European affairs. From the
disappearance of the last of the mammoths in the closing stages of the
Glacial time until the invasions of Italy by Pyrrhus and by Hannibal,
elephants were practically unknown in Western Europe. They have never
been used in peaceful occupations on that continent, and have had only
a trifling place in its military arts. It was probably due to this
separation of our eminently experimental race from the realm of the
elephants that no efforts have been made systematically to breed them
in captivity, and thus to win varieties in which the form might become
better adapted to economic needs, and the remarkable mental powers of
the creature be brought to their utmost development. As yet the only
Europeans who have had much to do with elephants are the British, who
in their civil and military service in India have been thrown in
contact with these animals. Generally, however, these people have been
only temporarily domiciled in Asia, and probably on this account have
not become interested in the problems which this noble beast presents
to all those who appreciate the animal world. We lack, indeed, the
observations which might have been made with admirable effect by
British observers in India during the two centuries in which that
people has had to do with the lands in which elephants abound.