June 2, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



87^ 



availing, auil he mado liis way through the palisade, aud 

 went off into the jungle. This was at 2 a.m., and was a 

 sufficiently exciting scene. No other elephants attempted 

 to follow, aud the gap was quickly repaired. 



Among.st these forty-eight elephants was one that had 

 escaped about twelve years ago, judging from the ages of 

 her three calves. We first observed the fact of her being 

 an escaped elephant by seeing old rope marks on her legs. 

 When the tame elephants entered the stockade, two ranged 

 alongside this one, aud on bemg pricked with a spear, aud 

 told to kneel, she obeyed at once. She was ridden alone 

 a few days afterwards. 



The number of wild elephants that can be takeu care 

 of is, at the most, 50 per cent more than the tame cnies. 

 As each capture is concluded, the wild elephants are march- 

 ed out of the juuglo into open country, for if kept in 

 the forest they continue to be excited by jungle sights 

 and sounds, and to struggle for hberty, whilst Hies are 

 much more troublesomo to their wounds in the jungle than 

 in the plains. Each batch of new elephants requires a 

 number of tame ones to be detached in charge of it ; thus 

 the hunting operations are hmited by the number of the 

 latter. 



■\Vheu a sufficient number of elephants has been taken, 

 the hunters are dismissed, and all elephants under 7 ft. in 

 height are solil to merchants who follow tho kheddah 

 parties for the purpose of purchasing such. Those above 

 7 ft. are retained for Crovernment ser\'icc, except some males 

 and- olil females which are also disposed of. Xot more 

 than 30 per cent of the elephants captured are young aud 

 strong females, thoroughly suitable for Oovernment service. 

 The .selected wild elephants are now divided into gangs of 

 twenties, with a proportion of tame ones in charge. These 

 escort the wild ones, bring their fodder, and lead them to 

 water daily. The march from the jungle commences about 

 the end of February, and the elephants reach the dep.H at 

 Dacca in May. They are then put into training, and by 

 November are quite steady, and are drafted for military 

 service. 



New elephants are trained as follows: — They are first tied 

 between two trees, and are rubbed down by a number of 

 men with long bamboos, to an accompaniment of the most 

 extravagant eulogies of the animal, sung aud shouted at it at 

 the top of their voices. Tho animal, of course, lashes out 

 furiously at first; but in a few d,ays it ceases to acton the 

 offeusivo, or, as native say, ^'.Shimim hiijta kfii," " It becomes 

 ashamed of itself," and it then stands with its trunk curled 

 up, shrinking from the men. Ropes are now tied round its 

 body, and it is mounted at its picket for several days. It is 

 then taken out for exercise, secured between two tame eleph- 

 ants. The ropes still remain round its body to enable the 

 mahout to hold on .should the elephant try to shake him off. 

 A man preceiles it ivith a spear to teach it to halt when or- 

 deritd to do so ; whilst as the tame elephants wheel to the 

 right or left the mahout presses its neck with his kuees. aud 

 taps it on the head with a small stick, to train it to turn in 

 the required direction. To teach au elephant to kneel, it 

 is taken into water five feet deep when the sun is hot, and 

 upon being pricked on the back with a pointed stick it soon 

 lies down, partly to avoid the pain, partly from iuclinatiou 

 for a bath. By taking it into shallow water daily, it is soon 

 taught to kneel even on land. 



Elephants are taught to pick up anything from the gi-ound 

 by a rope, with a piece of wood attached, being dangled 

 over their foreheads, near to tho ground. The wood strikes 

 against their trunk and forefeet, and to avoi<l the discomfort 

 the elephant soon takes it in his trunk, and carries it. It 

 eventually learns to do this without a rope being attached to 

 the object. 



I have only time to add a few facts regarding the financial 

 re.sults of elephant catching by the Government estabUsh- 

 ment at Dacca. Referring only to the ofiieial year ended 

 .31st March, 1S83, the expenditure upon the hunting estabhsh- 

 ment for twelve mouths was* £12,SM,S, and the receipts by 

 surplus elephants sold, and the value of those retained 

 £in,492, showing a profit of £6..5-44. Of this amount, £4,000 

 was surplus from the preceding year. 



During the past five years the annual average number of 

 elephants captured during our short working season, from 

 Docember to February, has been l.il. The greatest numlier 



' Taking the rupee at 2s. for couveuionce. 



in any single year was 252 in seven weeks in 1882, and 199 

 in a similar period in 1883. A ready sale is effected amongst 

 the native landowners, aud others who are foud of keeping 

 elephants, of all those not required by Government. 



The belief that wild elephants have decreased in India is 

 not an uncommon one, aud may have arisen from the fact 

 of laws having been passed in late years for their jirotection. 

 Also, from their undoubted decrease some years ago in 

 Oeylon. But the case of that island is not analogous to 

 that of the continent. In (.'eylou, elephauts have always 

 been made a peculiar object of psrsuit by largo numbers of 

 sportsmen, and by paid native hunters, whilst their range 

 is not without its limits. To show the numbers that have 

 been destroyed there, I may quote the official stitistios 

 betweeu 1845 aud 1859, whicli show that during those fifteen 

 years rewards were paid for 5,194 elephants kiUcd in, I 

 believe, only a part of the island. Similar destruction has 

 gone on for years, until rewards were abolished some years 

 ago. But elephants are again becoming numerous, and are 

 again allowed to be shot. 



But on the Continent of India the number shot py Europ- 

 ean sportsmen has always been small, and it was only 

 for a few years that natives were induced to turn their 

 attention to killing them by a reward given for their de- 

 struction in the Madras Presidency. This was soon with- 

 drawn, and the representations of hiunaue officials having 

 further led to tho curtailment of tho wasteful methods of 

 tr.apping them practised by native hunters, the wild eleph- 

 ant now enjoys perfect immunity throughout the Western 

 Ghats, and those boundless forests extending for hundreds 

 of miles along tho foot of the Himalayas iuto Burmah 

 and 8iam. The number annually caught l>y the Govern- 

 ment hunting establishment at Dacca (the only one at 

 present in India), and liy licensed native hunters, is, com- 

 paratively speaking, very small ; and there is no doubt that 

 all the forest ground that can be legitimately allowed to 

 the wild elephant is as fully occupied at present as is 

 desirable. The elephant-catching records of the past fifty 

 years attest tho fact that there is no diminution iu the 

 numbers now obtained iu Beugal, whilst in Southern India 

 elephants have become so numerous of late years that they 

 are annually aj>peariug in places where thoy had never 

 been heard of before. 



In the Billigarungun Hills, an isolated range of 300 square 

 miles on the borders of ily.sore, wild elephants first made 

 their appearance about the beginning of this century, hav- 

 ing strayed from the forests at the foot of the Neilgherry 

 range, acrcss an intervening strip of some thirty miles of 

 civilised country. Prior to that time the Sholagas, a wild 

 tribe that inhabit the Billigarungun hills, but which has 

 now dwindled down to a handful of savages, were a nu- 

 merous people; traces of their former extensive cultiv- 

 ation, even of orauge groves, gardens, and iron-smelting fur- 

 naces, still exist, together with lakes on the summit of the 

 hills, for the convenience of the cattle which used to be 

 driven thither from the neighbouring low country for pas- 

 turage during the hot weath.T. The Sholagas were almost 

 destroyed by three suoc^-iv visitations of small-pox, a 

 disease which is always exeeedni ; fatal amongst hill peo- 

 ple in India ; their lands relapsed into the densest forest ; 

 and wild elephauts and bison now abouncl where probably 

 not one was to be found a century ago. The case of these 

 hills is an interesting instance of a large tract of country 

 in India having relapse 1 into a wilderuess in recent times. 

 To give an idea of the numbers of wild elephants in 

 some forests, I may say that duriug the pa.st five years, 

 betweeu 1S7S and 18.-<3, 1,0C6 wild elephauts have been 

 captured by the Dacca hunting estabhshment in a tract 

 of country about fifty miles long by twenty miles broad, 

 in the fraro-hills in Ass;im, whiLst fully as many more were 

 met with during the hunting operatious. Of course these 

 elephants do not confine themselves to that tract alone, 

 but wander iuto other parts of the hills. There are im- 

 mense tracts of forest in India similarly well-stocked with 

 wild elephants. 



I am sure it will be regarded as a matter for hearty 

 congratulation by all, that so grand, interesting, useful, 

 antl harmless an animal as is the elephant is in no danger 

 of becoming eitinct in India. Thongh small portiouf of 

 its hamits have been cleared for tea or coffee cultivation, 

 the present forest area of the country will, probably, never 

 be practically reduced, for reasons connected with the 



