130 ELEPHANTS 



belief of his time as a chance illustration of human character 

 makes Ulysses say (referring to his own stiffness of 

 carriage) (" Troilus and Cressida," Act II) : " The elephant 

 hath joints, but none for courtesy ; his legs are legs for 

 necessity, not for flexure." An old writer says : " The 

 elephant hath no joints, and, being unable to lye down, it 

 lieth against a tree, which, the hunters observing, do saw 

 almost asunder ; whereon the beast relying by the fall 

 of the tree falls also down itself, and is able to rise no 

 more." Another old writer (Bartholomew, 1485), says, 

 more correctly : " When the elephant sitteth he bendeth 

 his feet ; he bendeth the hinder legs right as a man." 



A writer of 1 20 years later in date (Topsell) says : " In 

 the River Ganges there are blue worms of sixty cubits 

 long having two arms ; these when the elephants come to 

 drink in that river take their trunks in their hands and 

 pull them off. At the sight of a beautiful woman elephants 

 leave off all rage and grow meek and gentle. In Africa 

 there are certain springs of water which, if at any time 

 they dry up, they are opened and recovered again by the 

 teeth of elephants." The blue worm of the Ganges 

 referred to is no doubt the crocodile ; both in India and 

 Africa animals coming to the rivers to drink are seized by 

 lurking crocodiles, who fix their powerful jaws on to the 

 face (snout or muzzle) of the drinking animal and drag it 

 under the water. Thus the fable has arisen of the origin 

 of the elephant's trunk as recounted by Mr. Rudyard 

 Kipling. A young elephant (before the days of trunks), 

 according to this authority, when drinking at a riverside 

 had his moderate and well-shaped snout seized by a 

 crocodile. The little elephant pulled and the crocodile 

 pulled, and by the help of a friendly python the elephant 

 got the best of it. He extricated himself from the jaws of 

 death. But, oh ! what a difference in his appearance ! 

 His snout was drawn out so as to form that wonderful 



