XI 



THE MIND OF THE ELEPHANT 



IT was in the jungles of the Animallai Hills of southern 

 India that I first became impressed by the mental capacity 

 of the Indian elephant. I saw many wild herds. I saw 

 elephants at work, and at one period I lived in a timber 

 camp, consisting of working elephants and mahouts. I saw a 

 shrewd young elephant-driver soundly flogged for stealing an 

 elephant, farming it out to a native timber contractor for four 

 days, and then elaborately pretending that the animal had been 

 "lost." Later on I saw elephant performances in the " Greatest 

 Show on Earth" and elsewhere, and for eighteen years I have 

 been chief mourner over the idiosyncrasies of Gunda and Alice. 

 If I do not now know something about elephants, then my own 

 case of animal intelligence is indeed hopeless. 



To me it seems that the only thing necessary to establish 

 the elephant as an animal of remarkable intellect and power of 

 original reasoning is to set forth the unadorned facts that lie 

 ready to hand. 



Cuvier recorded the opinion that in sagacity the elephant in 

 no way excels the dog and some other species of carnivora. 

 Sir Emerson Tennent, even after some study of the elephant, 

 was disposed to award the palm for intelligence to the dog, but 

 only "from the higher degree of development consequent on 

 his more intimate domestication and association with man." 

 In the mind of G. P. Sanderson we fear that familiarity with 

 the elephant bred a measure of contempt; and this seems very 

 strange. He says: 



"Its reasoning faculties are undoubtedly far below those of 



