Chap. HI.] 
THE ELEPHANT. 
109 
venture ; and this again leads to the correction of an- 
other generally received error, that his legs are " formed 
more for strength than flexibility, and fitted to bear an 
enormous weight upon a level surface, without the ne- 
cessity of ascending or descending great acclivities." 1 
The same authority assumes that, although the elephant 
is found in the neighbourhood of mountainous ranges, 
and will even ascend rocky passes, such a service is a 
violation of its natural habits. 
Of the elephant of Africa I am not qualified to speak, 
nor of the nature of the ground which it most frequents; 
but certainly the facts in connection with the elephant 
of India are all irreconcilable with the theory mentioned 
above. In Bengal, in the Nilgherries, in Nepal, in 
Burmah, in Siam, Sumatra, and Ceylon, the districts in 
which the elephants most abound, are all hilly and 
mountainous. In the latter, especially, there is not 
a range so elevated as to be inaccessible to them. 
On the very summit of Adam's Peak, at an altitude of 
7,420 feet, and on a pinnacle which the pilgrims climb 
with difficulty, by means of steps hewn in the rock, 
Major Skinner, in 1840, found the spoor of an elephant. 
Prior to 1840, and before coffee-plantations had been 
extensively opened in the Kandyan ranges, there was not 
a mountain or a lofty feature of land of Ceylon which 
they had not traversed, in their periodical migrations in 
search of water ; and the sagacity which they display in 
"laying out roads " is almost incredible. They gene- 
rally keep along the backbone of a chain of hills, avoid- 
ing steep gradients : and one curious observation was 
not lost upon the government surveyors, that in crossing 
1 Menageries, $c, " The Elephant," ch. ii. 
