The Elephant 55 



or members supplied with afferent cerebro-spinal nerves, 

 to an extent not exceeding the ordinary powers of repara- 

 tion possessed by the system." Grief, when intense, re- 

 verses 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 ad- 

 vantage 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 per- 



