340 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



Cimbrian chief, Teutobocchus, whose extraordinary height 

 is recorded by Latin authors, although they seem to have 

 failed to note the slight objection that Teutobocchus, 

 though defeated at this place, survived his defeat and was 

 forced to walk in the triumphal procession of the victor. 

 It has been conjectured, not without probability, that these 

 were the bones of one of Hannibal's elephants, many of 

 which died on the way to Italy.* 



Many important facts of the primitive history of peoples 

 have been learned through philology, the original mean- 

 ing of the roots whence names of animal or plant species 

 have been derived usually showing the impression made 

 by the plant or animal form upon those who first became 

 acquainted with it. More especially is this true in a lan- 

 guage of such peculiar and almost transparent structure as 

 Chinese. Here the character used for elephant signifies 

 also form and image, and this is explained by the tradition 

 that in ancient days the bones of a dead elephant were 

 found and were put together to look like the living animal. 

 The character itself in its earliest form represented schemat- 

 ically the four legs, the ears, the trunk;, and the tusks of 

 an elephant. The name given to a large district in the 

 northern part of Kwangsi province perpetuates the mem- 

 ory of the finding of elephants there in the period of the 

 Han Dynasty, founded in 206 B. C.f A Chinese proverb 

 expressive of inordinate greed is "A snake would fain swal- 

 low an elephant." The use of ivory adornment for the 

 gates of the Imperial Palace is testified to by the fact that 

 "ivory gate " is a synonym of palace. 



"Buried ivory," or fossil ivory, appears to have been 

 known at an early period to the Chinese. They accounted 



*John Witaker, "The course of Hannibal over the Alps ascertained," London, 1794, 

 Vol. I, pp. 35, 36. 



fS. Wells Williams, "Dictionarj" of the Chinese Language," Shanghai, 1903, p. 792. 



