404 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



caries' weight, twelve ounces to the pound, or twenty -four 

 loth'' A curious circumstance related by this author is that 

 when a Hindu woman lost a blood-relation she broke up all 

 her ivory ornaments, replacing them with others when the 

 period of mourning had expired. The women wore, as a 

 rule, no less than twenty ivory or shell arm-rings (bangles) 

 on their arms.* 



That large tusks were occasionally secured from the wild 

 elephants of Sumatra is attested by the Bolognese traveller, 

 Ludovico Barthema, who visited that island in the first 

 decade of the sixteenth century. He asserts that he saw 

 there two tusks having a united weight of 336 pounds. f 



Although the Cinghalese elephants so rarely have tusks 

 that a qualified informant states that but one in a hundred 

 is so provided, a small amount of ivory is collected in 

 Ceylon and exported thence, largely to China. The Chinese 

 are credited with the opinion that Cinghalese ivory is the 

 best adapted for their dainty carvings, as in their opinion 

 it excels all other in density of texture and delicacy of tone.t 



The seventeenth-century French traveller Ta vernier states 

 that in his time it was found that the ivory from the 

 Island of Ceylon and from Achen did not turn yellow, as 

 did much of that derived from the mainland and from the 

 "West Indies," which must mean African ivory; hence the 

 Cinghalese ivory was the most highly esteemed in Taver- 

 nier's time.** The Abyssinians when they wished to make a 

 feast asked the consent of their overlord to kill an elephant. 

 To him they surrendered one of the tusks, retaining the 

 other for themselves and banqueting on the flesh of the 



*S. de Vries, "Curieuse Anmerckingen der Oost en West-Indische Verwonderens-waer- 

 dige Dingen," Utrecht, 1682, Pt. IV, p. 1208. 



tJohn Ogilby, "Africa," London, 1670, p. 13. 



JTennant, "Sketch of the Natural History of Ceylon," London, 1861, p. 78. 



**Les six voyages de Jean Baptiste Ta vernier, Paris, 1678-9, Vol. II, pp. 200-201; "Voy- 

 ages des Indes," Liv. I, xviii. 



