ELEPHANT GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 405 



rope with him ; tho decoy, perceiving the advantage he had 

 thus gained over the nooser, walked up of her own accord, and 

 pushed him backwards with her head, till she made him. un- 

 wind himself again ; upon which the rope was hauled tight and 

 made fast. More than once, when a wild one was extending 

 bis trunk, and would have intercepted the rope about to be 

 placed over his leg, Siribeddi, by a sudden motion of her own 

 trunk, pushed his aside, and prevented him ; and on one occasion, 

 when successive efforts had failed to put the noose over the 

 fore-leg of an elephant which was already secured by one foot, 

 but which wisely put the other to the ground as often as it was 

 attempted to pass the noose under it, I saw the decoy watch 

 her opportunity, and when his foot was again raised, suddenly 

 push in her own leg beneath it, and hold it up till the noose 

 was attached and drawn tight. 



One could almost fancy there was a display of dry humour 

 in the manner in which the decoys thus played with the fears 

 of the wild herd, and made light of their efforts at resistance. 

 When reluctant they shoved them forward, when violent they 

 drove them back ; when the wild ones threw themselves down, 

 the tame ones butted them with head and shoulders, and forced 

 them up again. And when it was necessary to keep them 

 down, they knelt upon them, and prevented them from rising, 

 till the ropes were secured. 



At every moment of leisure they fanned themselves with a 

 bunch of leaves, and the graceful ease with which an elephant 

 uses his trunk on such occasions is very striking. It is doubtless 

 owing to the combination of a circular with a horizontal move- 

 ment in that flexible limb; but it is impossible to see an 

 elephant fanning himself without being struck by the singular 

 elegance of motion which he displays. The tame ones, too, in- 

 dulged in the luxury of dusting themselves with sand, by 

 flinging it from their trunks ; but it was a curious illustration 

 of their delicate sagacity, that so long as the mahout was on 

 their necks, they confined themselves to flinging the dust along 

 their sides and stomach, as if aware that to throw it over their 

 heads and back would cause annoyance to their riders. 1 



Sir E. Tennent has also some observations on other 

 uses to which tame elephants are put, which are well 

 worth quoting. Thus, speaking of the labour of piling 

 timber, he says that the elephant 



1 Natural History nf Ceylon, pp. 181-94. 



