Obedience. 167 



apply to those in Ceylon, who are healthy, and as long- 

 lived as other men. If the motion of the elephant be 

 thus injurious, that of the camel must be still more so \ 

 yet we never hear of early death ascribed to this cause 

 by the Arabs. 



The voice of the keeper, with a very limited vocabu- 

 lary of articulate sounds, serves almost alone to guide the 

 elephant in his domestic occupations. 1 Sir Everard 

 Home, from an examination of the muscular fibres in 

 the drum of an elephant's ear, came to the conclusion, 

 that notwithstanding the distinctness and power of his 

 perception of sounds at a greater distance than other 

 animals, he was insensible to their harmonious modula- 

 tion and destitute of a musical ear.^ But Professor 

 Harrison, in a paper read before the Royal Irish 



' The principal sound by which the his voice, and the use of the word 

 mahouts in Ceylon direct the motions hurliaiit ! In the North, '^ Hurs was 

 of the elephants is a repetition, with a word used by the old Germans in 

 various modulations, of the words urging their horses to speed : " and Sir 

 ur-re ! ur-re ! This is one of those Francis Head, in his Bubbles from 

 interjections in which the sound is so the Brunnens, describes the Schwin- 

 expressive of the sense that persons in General shouting "ariff" to his pia;s 

 charge of animals of almost every de- — ''' arijf ! vociferated the old man, 

 scription throughout the world appear striding after one of his rebellious sub- 

 to have adopted it with a concurrence jects ; ariff ! re-echoed his boy striding 

 that is very curious. The drivers of after another." (P. 94.) 

 camels in Turkey, Palestine, and To the present day, the herdsmen in 

 Eg^fpt encourage them to speed by Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive 

 shouling «r-r6' .' ar-re ! The Arabs in their pigs with shouts of hurrish ! 3. 

 Algeria cry eirich ! to their mules. sound closely resembling that used by 

 The Moors seem to have carried the the mahouts in Ceylon, 

 custom with them into Spain, where ^ On the Differetice beiiueen the Hti- 

 inules are still driven with cries of «rr/? ■ma7i Membrana tympani and that 

 (whence the muleteers derive their of the Elephatit. By Sir Everard 

 Spanish appellation of "arrieros"). Home, Bart., Philos. Trans. 1823. 

 In France the sportsman e.vcites the Paper by Prof. Harrison, /'rfc. Titya^ 

 hound by shouts of hare! hare! and Irish Academy, vol. iii. p. 386. 

 the waggoner there turns his horses by 



