THE INDIAN ELEPHANT. 3Q3 



Elephants in their wild state feed chiefly on herbage, leaves, 

 and roots j and it may easily be supposed that creatures so 

 enormous possess appetites in proportion. To each of the 

 hundred and one elephants that the Emperor Akbar kept for 

 his own riding, two hundred pounds of food was the daily 

 allowance -, but most of them had also ten pounds of sugar, 

 besides rice, pepper, and milk. Hay, clover, and carrots are their 

 chief food in our English menageries. 



They are very fond of bathing, and when in the water they 

 often emit a singular noise by ejecting the water from their 

 trunks. Bishop Heber, who heard this noise near Dacca, says, 

 " A most solemn and singular sound struck my ear. It was 

 long, loud, deep, and tremulous, somewhat between the bellow- 

 ing of a bull and the blowing of a whale, or perhaps most like 

 the roaring noise which the wind makes in those buoys which 

 are placed at the mouths of some English harbours to warn 

 ships off them. ' Oh,' said Abdallah, ' there are elephants bathing, 

 Dacca much place for them.' I looked round, and saw the 

 heads and trunks of about twenty of these fine animals just 

 raised above the water. It was their bellowing I had heard, 

 and which the water conveyed to us with a finer effect than 

 if we had been on shore."* 



The courage which the natives of Ceylon display in attacking 

 wild elephants is truly astonishing, when it is remembered that 

 the animals are in an excited state meanwhile, and that should 

 the hunters come within fair reach of the trunk or tusks, it is 

 almost certain that their temerity will cost them their lives.f 

 When a herd has been driven into a kraal or enclosure, for 

 their capture, the hunters pass and re-pass with great boldness, 

 to effect the operation of noosing. Partly protected by tame 



* Journal, vol. i. p. 182. 



f The accounts of the killing of poor Chunee at Exeter 'Change, some 

 years ago, caused great laughter in Ceylon, where a single hunter will attack 

 a wild elephant. The newspapers took out a plan of the scene, with the 

 various objects regularly marked, such as E, the elephant, G, a party of the 

 guards ; and, in conclusion, a return of the quantity of ammunition expended 

 in killing an elephant in a caye. 



