Cuar. TIL] THE ELEPHANT. 115 
their vicious propensities and predatory habit: are called 
Hora, or Rogues, in Ceylon. 
It is believed by the Singhalese that these are either 
individuals, who by accident have lost their former 
associates and become morose and savage from rage and 
solitude; or else that being naturally vicious they have 
become daring from the yielding habits of their milder 
companions, and eventually separated themselves from 
the rest of the herd which had refused to associate with 
thera. Another conjecture is, that being almost uni- 
versally males, the death or capture of particular females 
tay have detached them from their former companions 
in search of fresh alliances.? It is also believed that a 
tame elephant escaping from captivity, unable to rejoin 
its former herd, and excluded from any other, becomes 
a “rogue” from necessity. In Ceylon it is generally 
believed that the rogues are all males (but of this I am 
not certain), and so sullen is their disposition that 
” 
! The term “rogue” is scarcely 
sufficiently accounted for by sup- 
posing it to be the English equiva- 
lent for the Singhalese word Hora. 
In that very curious book, the 
Life and Adventures of Joux 
CuatstorpHEE Wotr, late princi- 
pal Secretary at Jaffnapatam in 
Ceylon, the author says. when a 
male elephant in a quarrel about 
the females “is beat out of the 
field and obliged to go without a 
consort, he becomes furious and 
mad, killing every living creature, 
be it man or beast: and in this 
state is called ronkedor, an object 
of greater terror to a traveller than 
a hundred wild ones.”—P. 142. 
In another passage, p. 164, he is 
called runkedor, and I have seen it 
spelt elsewhere ronguedu. Wo.r 
does not give “ronkedor” as a 
term peculiar to that section of the 
island; but both there and else- 
where, it is obsolete at the present 
day, unless it be open to conjecture 
that the modern term “rogue” isa 
modification of ronguedue. 
* Bucwanay, in his Survey of 
Bhagulpore, p. 503, says that soli- 
tary males of the wild buffalo, 
“when driven from the herd by 
stronger competitors for female 
society, arereckonedvery dangerous 
to meet with; for they are apt to 
wreak their vengeance on what- 
ever they meet, and are said to 
kill annually three or four people.” 
Livrxcstoye relates the same of 
the solitary hippopotamus, which 
becomes soured in temper, and 
wantonly attacks the passing ca- 
noes.— Travels in South Africa, 
p. 231, 
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