The Elephant 



adds, " he is the terror of an elephant corral ... its un- 

 disputed lord." The weak point in Sir Emmerson Ten- 

 nant's demonstration of the mechanical impossibility of 

 using those parts, on account of the angle at which they 

 are set in the jaw, is due to his having overlooked the fact 

 that an elephant can move his head. Emin Pasha (" Col- 

 lection of Journals, Letters, etc.") reports that he saw a 

 soldier in Central Africa who had been desperately 

 wounded by a thrust from an elephant's tusk. It was the 

 accident of being struck by the side of one instead of its 

 point that enabled Colonel Barras to get off with his life ; 

 and Sir Samuel Baker relates the death of Mr. Ingram, 

 who was transfixed. These animals have no special way 

 of inflicting death, though most commonly this is caused 

 by trampling. All the modes enumerated are vouched for 

 by witnesses whose evidence there is no reason to doubt, 

 and this clash of opinion is only one of the many out- 

 growths of that strange superstition by which brutes are 

 represented to act uniformly in consequence of their un- 

 varying mental constitution. Nothing, for instance, even 

 among the best authorities, is more frequently met with 

 than the point-blank assertion that an elephant never 

 strikes with its trunk. Yet Andersson (** Lake N'gami ") 

 was nearly killed in this way. General Shakespear saw 

 his gun-bearer struck down, and Sir James E. Alexander 

 ("Excursions in Africa") describes its use as a means of 

 offence. There are many reasons why this organ should 

 not be thus employed habitually, but there is no cause 

 which would prevent it from being applied in this manner 

 when the animal himself, who is much the best judge, 

 thought proper to do so. 



