ELEPHANTA ELEPHANTINA. 



839 



and a plentiful supply of food. He is generally fed 

 with rice, either raw or boiled, and mixed with water. 

 To keep him in full vigour, a hundred pounds of this 

 food is said to be required daily, besides fresh herbage 

 to cool him, and he must be led to the water twice 

 or thrice a-day to bathe. His daily consumption of 

 water as drink is about forty gallons. Desmarest 

 states that he daily requires about 202 pounds of ali- 

 ment of all sorts. 



To enumerate all the services of these useful ani- 

 mals would be incompatible with the design of this 

 work. They are employed in carrying burdens on 

 their bodies, necks, and even in their mouths, by 

 means of a rope, the end of which they hold fast 

 with their teeth ; they load a boat with amazing dex- 

 terity, carefully keeping all the articles dry, and dis- 

 posing them where they ought to be placed. In pro- 

 pelling wheel carriages heavily laden upon a decli- 

 vity, they push them forward with their forehead, and 

 support them with their knees. In dragging beams 

 of wood along the ground, they remove obstacles or 

 elevate the ends of the beams so as to clear them. 

 Before the invention of fire-arms, they were used in 

 war by many nations of antiquity ; they are still em- 

 ployed in the East in dragging artillery over moun- 

 tains. During the rutting season, this animal is often 

 seized with a madness which deprives him of all 

 tractability, and renders him so dangerous, that it is 

 often necessary to kill him. In many parts of India, 

 elephants are made the executioners of justice ; for 

 they will with their trunks either break the limbs of 

 a criminal, trample him to death, or pierce him with 

 their tusks, as they may be directed. In the island 

 of Ceylon, the general value of an elephant is 

 between fifty and sixty pounds ; but if there is any 

 blemish, as a want of tail, &c., very considerable de- 

 ductions are made. They are taken at certain stated 

 periods, and generally a great number are sold 

 together by auction. The structure of the elephant's 

 ear has been investigated .with great accuracy by 

 Sir Everard Home. The drum, and every other part 

 of the organ, is much larger in proportion than in other 

 quadrupeds, or in man ; and there is a remarkable 

 difference in the arrangement of the muscular fibres 

 of the drum of its ear, when compared with some 

 quadrupeds and the human species. In the human 

 ear, those fibres are radia of a circle ; and in the horse, 

 the hare, and the cat, they are of an uniform length ; 

 but in the elephant's ear these fibres are so placed 

 that some are more than double the length of others. 

 Sir E. Home argues, from this remarkable construc- 

 tion, that the elephant has not a musical ear ; but that 

 it has a peculiar compensating power in this length of 

 hbre, as its slower vibrations enable it to hear sounds 

 at a great distance. The tusks of the elephant have 

 long been applied, under the denomination of ivory, 

 to a variety of important uses in the arts. From the 

 fossil remains which have been discovered, it is ap- 

 parent that they must have been abundantly distributed 

 over the earth ; and some of them appear to have 

 been adapted to a much more northern climate than is 

 now inhabited by the elephant. The specimen which 

 was, some years since, found imbedded in ice in Si- 

 beria, was covered with a long and coarse hair, and 

 with a finer and woolly covering, which was short, 

 iind closely applied to the surface, thus protecting it 

 ugainst the severe cold of those latitudes. The ac- 

 counts of the manners and intelligence of the elephant 

 as given by writers, although in many cases evidently 

 exaggerated, still afford proof of a surprising degree 

 of sagacity, and fully entitle him to the rank of 



" The wisest of brutes, with gentle might endowed ; 

 Though powerful, not destructive." 



ELEPHANTA, or ELEPHANT ISLE ; called by 

 U; natives Gharipoor; an island between Bombay 



and the west coast of Hindostan, 5 miles in circuit, 

 with about 100 inhabitants ; 5 miles E. Bombay. It 

 was named Elephanta by the Portuguese, from a 

 colossal statue of an elephant formed out of a black 

 rock, which stands in the open plain opposite to the 

 landing place. The island owes its celebrity to. its 

 wonderful cave and mythological inscriptions. This 

 cave is nearly sixty feet square, and eighteen high, 

 supported by pillars cut out of the rock ; and in the 

 sides there are numerous compartments, containing 

 various representations of Hindoo deities. 



ELEPHANTIASIS (from ixty*;, an elephant) ; 

 adisease so called from the legs of people affected with 

 it growing scaly, rough, and wonderfully large, at an 

 advanced period, like the legs of an elephant. The 

 disease attacks the whole body, but mostly affects 

 the feet, which appear somewhat like those of the 

 elephant. It is known by the skin being thick, rough 

 wrinkly, unctuous, and void of hair, and mostly with- 

 out the sense of feeling. It is said to be contagious. 

 Cullen makes it a genus of disease in the class 

 cachexiae, and order impetigines. Elephantiasis has 

 generally been supposed to arise in consequence of 

 some slight attack of fever, on the cessation of which 

 the morbid matter falls on the leg, and occasions a 

 distension and tumefaction of the limb, which is after- 

 wards overspread with uneven lumps, and deep fis- 

 sures. By some authors it has been considered as a 

 species of leprosy ; but it often subsists for many years 

 without being accompanied with any of the symptoms 

 which characterize that disease. It sometimes comes 

 on gradually, without much previous indisposition ; 

 but more .generally, the person is seized with a cold- 

 ness and shivering, pains in the head, back, and loins, 

 and some degree of nausea. A slight fever then 

 ensues, and a severe pain is felt in one of the inguinal 

 glands, which, after a short time, becomes hard, 

 swelled, and inflamed. No suppuration, however, 

 ensues ; but a red streak may be observed running 

 down the thigh from the swelled gland to the leg. 

 As the inflammation increases in all the parts, the fever 

 gradually abates, and, perhaps, after two or three 

 days' continuance, goes off. It, however, returns 

 again at uncertain periods, leaving the leg greatly 

 swelled with varicose, turgid veins, the skin rough 

 and rugged, and a thickened membrana cellulosa. 

 Scales appear also on the surface, which do not fall 

 off, but are enlarged by the increasing thickness of 

 the membranes ; uneven lumps, with deep fissures, 

 are formed, and the leg and foot become at last of an 

 enormous size. A person may labour under this dis- 

 ease many years without finding much alteration in 

 his general health, except during the continuance or 

 the attacks ; and perhaps the chief inconvenience he 

 will experience is the enormous bulky leg which he 

 drags about with him. The incumbrance has, in- 

 deed, induced many who have laboured under this 

 disease to submit to an amputation ; but the operation 

 seldom proves a radical cure, as the other leg fre- 

 quently becomes affected. Hilary observes, that he 

 never saw both legs swelled at the same time. Instan- 

 ces where they have alike acquired a frightful and pro- 

 digious size, have, however, frequently fallen under 

 the observation of other physicians. 



ELEPHANT'S RIVER, in Africa, rises in the 

 country of the Hottentots, and runs into the Atlantic, 

 lat. 31 S. 



ELEPHANTINA, or EL SAG ; a small island ou 

 the Nile, opposite to Syene ; remarkable for the ruins 

 with which it is covered. The northern part is low, 

 the southern elevated and rocky. The Nile, for 

 nearly a mile above, is interrupted by numerous 

 small rocks of that fine red granite, which character- 

 izes this island, and which produced so many portals, 

 columns, and obelisks, to adorn the chief cities of 



