270 



EXISTING INDIAN ELEPHANT. 



endeavoured, through the native officers connected with the 

 administration of the Fair, to ascertain the number of Ele- 

 phants then crowded within a small area, and the return 

 made was about eleven hundred, derived from all parts of 

 India, the majority of which passed under my eye. I have 

 seen the Elephants of Pegu and Siam in the forests of the 

 Tenasserim provinces, and the Ceylon Elephant in its native 

 island. The only geographical forms of the Asiatic species 

 which I have not examined alive are those of Cochin-China, 

 Borneo, and Sumatra. The result of this range of observa- 

 tion, combined with long osteological study, has been to 

 establish the conviction in my mind that there is but a 

 single species of Asiatic Elephant at present known, mo- 

 dified, doubtless, according to his more northern or southern 

 habitat, but not to an extent exceeding that of a slight 

 geographical variety. 



It is the more necessary that the subject should be tho- 

 roughly investigated, since upon the hasty assumption tbat 

 the Elephants of Ceylon and Sumatra belong to a distinct 

 species, a speculation has been put forward which seeks to 

 explain it by means of a former dn-ect continuity of land 

 between the two islands. 1 But the inferences of physical 

 geography and of geology are alike opposed to the conjecture. 

 The range of low hills which forms the spine of the Malay 

 Peninsula, and which is separated by a narrow interval only 

 from the Islands of the Archipelago, can be traced north, 

 increasing in height and development till it joins on with 

 the Himalayahs ; while Ceylon, as has often been remarked, 

 presents all the physical characters of being a severed portion 

 of the distinct mountain- system of the Western Ghats. With 

 certain exceptions, the Mammalian fauna, as a general rule, 

 confirms this view, as do also recent investigations on the 

 Flora of the mountainous regions of the adjoining Indian 

 Peninsula, near its extremity. That a connection formerly, 

 and at no very remote epoch, existed between the Malay 

 Archipelago and the continuous main land, is clearly indi- 

 cated by the species of the large Mammalia common to both, 

 including Rhinoceros Sumatranus, B. Sondaicus, Bos Sondaicus, 



killed in an affray by the Sikhs. I do 

 not vouch for the accuracy of the num- 

 ber of Elephants reported to me, on 

 the occasion above referred to ; but I 

 believe it to have been under the truth, 

 rather than above it. I mention this, 

 the more especially, as probably no such 

 assemblage of Elephants will ever again 

 be seen at Hurdwar. The facilities of 

 railway travelling will relieve the Princes 

 of Southern India, such as Travancore 



and Tanjore, &c, from the necessity of 

 taking a cortege of Elephants with them, 

 when they attend the Koom Fair in 

 future. (Hardwick, Op. cit. vol vi. p. 

 312.) During the 'Koom' of 1760, 

 eighteen thousand Bairagis (Fakirs of one 

 sect) are said to have been slaughtered 

 by the Gosains, another sect. ( Op. cit. 

 vol. xi. p. 455.) 



1 Tennent. 'Nat. History of Ceylon,' 

 1861, pp. 61-67. 



