Elephant Wells. 55 



In drinking, the elephant, hke the camel, although 

 preferring water pure, shows no decided aversion to it 

 when discoloured with mud ; ^ and the eagerness with 

 which he j^recipitates himself into the tanks and streams 

 attests his exquisite enjoyment of the fresh coolness, 

 which to him is the chief attraction. In crossing deep 

 rivers, although his rotundity and buoyancy enable him 

 to swim with a less immersion than other quadrupeds, 

 he generally prefers to sink till no part of his huge body 

 is visible except the tip of his trunk, through which he 

 breathes, moving beneath the surface, and only now and 

 then raising his head to look that he is keeping the 

 proper direction,^ In the dry season the scanty streams 

 which, during the rains, are sufficient to convert the 

 rivers of the low country into torrents, often entirely 

 disappear, leaving only broad expanses of dry sand, 



which they have swept down with them from the hills.- 

 In this the elephants contrive to sink wells for their 



' This peculiarity was known in the ° A tame elephant, when taken by 



middle ages, ana Phile, writing in the his keepers to be bathed, and to have 



fourteenth century, says, that such is his skin washed and rubbed, lies down 



his preference for muddy water that on his side, pressing his head to the 



the elephant stirs it before he drinks. bottom under water, with only the top 



'Y6wp Se n-ii/ei avyx^Qiv nplv av ttiVoi, of his trunk protruded, to breathe. 

 To yap SieiSes aKpi/Suis Siairrvei.. 



Phile de Elcph. i. 144. 



