32 



THE ELEPHANTS. 



banks of the Lena, these mammoths were 

 covered with a thick fleece, and had long 

 fluttering manes depending from the back 

 and breast. 



The Indian elephant is scarcely hunted at 

 all now like the African one for the sake of 

 its ivory, but it is often captured to be tamed 

 and used for the transport of heavy material 

 over marshy and difficult ground where there 

 are no roads. For such work the elephant 

 is admirably adapted by its patience, caution, 

 and skill, and its remarkable strength enables 

 it to overcome the greatest obstacles. In 

 general they are obedient and attached to 

 their masters. But at the time of heat, 

 which occurs at irregular periods, they can- 

 not be trusted, since they are then subject 

 to sudden accesses of fury. Their keepers 

 know very well that the increased excretion 

 of a strongly-smelling oily fluid from a super- 

 ficial gland behind the eye bodes no good. 



It has been said that elephants do not 

 propagate in captivity. That is entirely 

 false. In the countries in which elephants 

 are still frequently used, in which they are 

 attached to the royal train, and even enjoy a 

 kind of worship, as, for example, in Siam, 

 there are breeding-studs of elephants, as we 

 have breeding-studs of horses, and not very 

 long ago a young elephant was born in New 

 York of a female that had been kept for 

 twenty years in a menagerie. But the pro- 

 pagation in this way takes place extremely 

 slowly, so that it is necessary to have constant 

 resort to wild animals to make up deficiencies. 

 In some countries, especially in Ceylon, 

 there are certain castes, in which the business 

 of elephant -hunter is handed down from 

 father to son. Mostly these hunters go out 

 in pairs armed only with a very strong lasso 

 or noose made of buffalo hide. They know 

 how to slink up to an animal unobserved, 

 but instead of severing the sinew at the knee, 

 like the African hunters, one of them throws 

 the noose round one of its feet while his 

 companion fastens the other end to a thick 



tree. The captured elephant becomes furious, 

 makes all possible efforts to get free, but is 

 at last subdued by hunger, thirst, and pain; 

 and at the end of a few months the elephant- 

 catchers return in triumph with the tamed 

 elephant, which is often accompanied by a 

 female and her young one. Sometimes also 

 great elephant battues are organized for the 

 purpose of capturing whole troops. 



The following notices regarding the elephant, and 

 account of the mode of capturing it in large bands, 

 by G. P. Sanderson, superintendent of government 

 elephant-catching operations in Bengal, will be read 

 with interest: — 



"The opinion is generally held by those who have 

 had the best opportunities of observing the elephant, 

 that the popular estimate of its intelligence is a 

 greatly exaggerated one; that, instead of being an 

 exceptionally wise animal, its sagacity is of a very 

 mediocre description. The truth of this opinion no 

 one who has lived amongst elephants can doubt. 

 It is a significant fact that the natives of India never 

 speak of the elephant as a peculiarly intelligent 

 animal, and it does not figure in their ancient litera- 

 ture for its wisdom, as do the fox, the crow, and the 

 monkey. 



"One of the strongest features in the domesticated 

 elephant's character is its obedience. It may also 

 be readily taught, as it has a large share of the 

 ordinary cultivable intelligence common, in a greater 

 or less degree, to all animals. But its reasoning 

 faculties are undoubtedly far below those of the 

 dog, and possibly of other animals ; and in matters 

 beyond the range of its daily experience it evinces 

 no special discernment. Whilst fairly quick at 

 comprehending anything sought to be taught to it, 

 the elephant is decidedly wanting in originality. 

 To begin with, the elephant displays less intelligence 

 in its natural state than most wild animals. Whole 

 herds are driven into ill-concealed enclosures, which 

 no other forest creatures could be got to enter ; and 

 though these enclosures are made immensely strong, 

 and are generally capable of resisting the efforts of 

 any single elephant, they would not for a moment 

 withstand the combined attack of even two or three, 

 much less of a whole herd. But elephants never 

 thus combine to free themselves. I have frequently 

 seen fifty or sixty crowded into a stockade only 

 thirty yards in diameter, the palisades of which 

 would have been of no more account than corn- 



