6 The Wi^d Elephant. 



districts, and the clearing of the mountain forests of 

 Kandy for the cultivation of coffee, have forced the 

 animals to retire to the low country, Avhere again they 

 have been followed by large parties of European sports- 

 men ; and the Singhalese themselves, being more freely 

 provided with arms than in former times, have assisted in 

 swelling the annual slaughter.' 



Had the motive that incites to the destruction of the 

 elephant in Africa and India prevailed in Ceylon, that is, 

 had the elephants there been provided with tusks, they 

 would long since have been annihilated for the sake of 

 the ivory.2 But it is a curious fact that, whilst in Africa 

 and India both sexes have tusks, ^ with some slight 



(especially near the wilds of Ramsurl, 

 the natives got rid of them by mixing 

 a preparation of the poisonous Nepal 

 root called dakra in balls of grain, and 

 ether materials, of which the animal is 

 fond. In Cuttack, above fifty years 

 ago, mineral poison was laid for them 

 in the same way, and the carcases of 

 eighty were found which had been 

 killed thus. {Asiat. Res. xv. 183.) 



' The number of elephants has been 

 similarly reduced throughout the south 

 of India, and as in the advancing 

 course of enclosure and cultivation, 

 the area within which they will be 

 driven must become more and more 

 contracted, the conjecture is by no 

 means problematical, that before many 

 generations shall have passed away, the 

 species may become extinct in Asia. 



■"' The annual importation of ivory 

 into Great Britain alone, for the last 

 few years, has been about apie mtiiian 

 pounds; which, taking the average 

 weight of a tusk at sixty pounds, would 

 require the slaughter of 8,333 male 

 elephants. 



But of this quantit)' the importation 

 from Ceylon has generally averaged 

 only five orsi.x hundred weight ; which, 

 making allowance for the lightness of 

 the tusks, would not involve the de- 

 struction of more than seven or eight 

 in each year. At the same time, this 

 does not fairly represent the annual 

 number of tuskers shot in Ceylon, not 

 only because a portion of the ivory 

 finds its way to China and to other 

 places, but because the chiefs and 

 Buddhist priests have a passion for col- 

 lecting tusks, and the finest and largest 

 are to be found ornamenting their 

 temples and private dwellings. The 

 Chinese profess that for their e.xquisite 

 carvings the ivory of Ceylon excels all 

 other, both in density of texture and in 

 delicacy of tint ; but in the European 

 market, the ivory of Africa, from its 

 more distinct graining, and other causes, 

 obtains a higher price. 



^ A writer in the Indian Sporting 

 Revimt) for October 1857 says, " In 

 Malabar a tuskless male elephant is 

 rare ; I have seen but two." (P. 157.) * 



