432 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



which he had slightly wounded, owed his almost miraculous 

 escape. The animal had already raised its fore-foot to trample 

 him to death, when, its forehead being caught at the instant by 

 the tendrils of a climbing plant which had suspended itself from 

 the branches above, it suddenly turned and fled.* An instinctive 

 consciousness that his superior bulk exposes him to danger from 

 sources that might be harmless in the case of lighter animals, 

 is probably the reason why the elephant displays a remarkable 

 reluctance to face the slightest artificial obstruction on his 

 passage. Even when enraged by a wound, he will hesitate to 

 charge his assailant across an intervening hedge, suspecting it 

 may conceal a snare. Unlike the horse, he never gets accus- 

 tomed to the report of fire-arms, and thus no longer plays an 

 active part in battle as in the times of Pyrrhus and Hannibal, 

 but serves in a modern campaign merely as a common beast of 

 burden, or for the transport of heavy artillery. 



To make up for his restricted vision, bis neck being so 

 formed as to render him incapable of directing the range of his 

 eye much above the level of his head, he is endowed with a re- 

 markable power of smell, and a delicate sense of hearing, which 

 serve to apprise him of the approach of danger. 



Although, from their huge bulk, the elephants might be 

 supposed to prefer a level country, yet, in Asia at least, the 

 regions where they most abound are all hilly and mountainous. 

 In Ceylon, particularly, there is not a range so high as to be 

 inaccessible to them, and so sure-footed are they that, provided 

 there be solidity to sustain their weight, they will climb rocks, 

 and traverse ledges where even a mule dare not venture. 



Dr. Hooker admired the judicious winding of the elephant's 

 path in the Himalayas, and Sir J. E. Tennent describes the saga- 

 city which he displays in laying out roads, or descending abrupt 

 banks, as almost incredible. ' His first manoeuvre is to kneel 

 down close to the edge of the declivity, placing his chest to 

 the ground, one fore-leg is then cautiously passed a short way 

 down the slope, and if there is no natural protection to afford 

 a firm footing, he speedily forms one by stamping into the soil 

 if moist, or kicking out a footing if dry. This point gained, 

 the other fore-leg is brought down in the same v/ay, and per- 



* Sir James Emerson Tennent : ' Ceylon,' vol. ii. p. 288. Fourth Edition. 



