AGE. 275 



ignorant of the value of the precious article, 

 reared their huts upon ivory stanchions ; and that 

 ivory pillars and doors were common among them." 



The elephant is a long-lived animal, a fact of which 

 there is sufficient evidence in the remarkable forma- 

 tion and durability of its teeth, and the number of 

 years that elapse (variously estimated from twenty- / 

 five to forty-five) before it arrives at maturity. But ^ 

 to what age it actually attains does not seem quite 

 clear. It is on record, however, that, even in a 

 state of captivity, it has been known to exist from 

 one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty 

 years.. We read, indeed, in the life of Apollonius 

 of Tyana (a book of somewhat doubtful authority), 

 that at the tremendous battle on the banks of the 

 river Hydaspes, where Alexander the__Grciit broke 

 the power of the Indian I'Tmce, Porus, a great num- 

 ber of elephants were captured by the Macedonians, 

 and amongst the rest, the Monarch's own, called 

 Ajax, and that three hundred and fifty years after 

 this remarkable event, a traveller, who at that 

 period visited India, saw, as he himself informs us, 

 this identical elephant, " which the inhabitants per- 

 fumed with sweet odours and adorned with gar- 

 lands. On his tusks were rings of gold, on which 

 was inscribed, in Greek characters, ' Alexander, 

 son of Jupiter, dedicated Ajax to the sun.' ' The 

 Komaus, in the time of Gordian, adopted the 

 elephant as the symbol of eternity. 



But great as may be the age to which the 

 elephant attains when in captivity, there can be 

 little doubt he lives much longer when in a state of 

 unrestrained freedom. T 2 



