]62 The Wild Elephant. 



attitudes, can only be comprehended by being seen. In 

 moving timber and masses of rock his trunk is the in- 

 strument on which he mainly relies, but those which have 

 tusks turn them to good account. To get a Aveighty 

 stone out of a hollow an elephant will kneel down so as 

 to apply the pressure of his head to move it upwards, 

 then stead3nng it with one foot till he can raise himself, 

 he will apply a fold of his trunk to shift it to its place, 

 and fit it accurately in position : this done, he will step 

 round to view it on either side, and adjust it with due 

 precision. He appears to gauge his task by his eye, and 

 to form a judgment whether the weight be proportionate 

 to his strength. If doubtful of his own power, he hesi- 

 tates and halts, and if urged against his will, he roars and 

 shows temper. 



In clearing an opening through forest land, the power 

 of the African elephant, and the strength ascribed to him 

 by a recent traveller, as displayed in uprooting trees, have 

 never been equalled or approached by anything I have 

 seen of the elephant in Ceylon • or heard of them in India. 



' " Here the trees were large and forests where the trees thus broken lay 



handsome, but not strong enough to so thick across one another, that it was 



resist the inconceivable strength of the almost impossible to ride through the 



mighty monarch of these forests ; al- districts." (Ibid. p. 310.) 

 most every tree had half its branches Mr. Gordon Gumming does not name 



broken short by them, and at every the trees which he saw thus " uprooted" 



hundred yards I came upon entire trees, and " broken acro.ss," nor has he given 



and these, the la7-gest in the forest, any idea of their size and weight : but 



uprooted clean out of the ground, and Major Denh.\m, who observed like 



hrokeji short across their sterns.^'' (A traces of the elephant in Africa, saw 



Hiinter^s Life in South Africa. By only small trees overthrown by them: 



R. Gordon Gumming, vol. ii. p. 305.) and Mr. Pringle, who had an oppor- 



" Spreading out from one another, they tunity of observing similar practices of 



smash and destroy all the finest trees the animals in the neutral territory 



in the forest which happen to be in of the Eastern frontier of the Cape of 



their course. ... I have rode through Good Hope, describes their ravages as 



