Great Age. 179 



years before ; and amongst the papers left by Colonel 

 Robertson (son to the historian of " Charles V."), who 

 held a command in Ceylon in 1799, shortly after the 

 capture of the island by the British, I have found a 

 memorandum showing that a decoy was then attached to 

 the elephant establishment at Matura, which the records 

 proved to have served under the Dutch during the entire 

 period of their occupation (extending to upwards of one 

 hundred and forty years) ; and it was said to have been 

 found in the stables by the Dutch on the expulsion of 

 the Portuguese in 1656. 



It is perhaps from this popular belief in their almost 

 illimitable age, that the natives generally assert that the 

 body of a dead elephant is seldom or never to be dis- 

 covered in the woods. And certain it is that frequenters 

 of the forest with whom I have conversed, whether 

 European or Singhalese, are consistent in their assur- 

 ances that they have never found the remains of an 

 elephant that had died a natural death. One chief, the 

 Wannyah of the Trincomalie district, told a friend of 

 mine, that once after a severe murrain, which had swept 

 the province, he found the carcasses of elephants that 

 had died of the disease. On the other hand, a European 

 gentleman, who for thirty-six years without intermission 

 has been living in the jungle, ascending to the summits 

 of mountains in the prosecution of the trigonometrical 

 survey, and penetrating valleys in tracing roads and 

 opening means of communication, — one, too, who has 

 made the habits of the wild elephant a subject of con- 

 stant observation and study, — has often expressed to me 



