Chap. VII.] THE ELEPHANT. 
215 
are the soonest and most effectually subdued, and 
generally prove permanently docile and submissive. 
But those which are sullen or morose, although they 
may provoke no chastisement by their viciousness, are 
always slower in being taught, and are rarely to be 
trusted in after life. 1 
But whatever may be its natural gentleness and 
docility, the temper of an elephant is seldom to be im- 
plicitly relied on in a state of captivity and coercion. 
The most amenable are subject to occasional fits of 
stubbornness ; and even after years of submission, irri- 
tability and resentment will unaccountably manifest 
themselves. It may be that the restraints and severer 
discipline of training have not been entirely forgotten ; 
or that incidents which in ordinary health would be pro- 
1 The natives profess that the 
high caste elephants, such as are 
allotted to the temples, are of all 
others the most difficult to tame, 
and M. Bees, the Dutch corre- 
spondent of Buffon, mentions a 
caste of elephants which he had 
heard of, as being peculiar to the 
Kandyan kingdom, that were not 
higher than a heifer (genisse), 
covered with hair, and insuscep- 
tible of being tamed. (Buffon, 
Supp. vol. vi. p. 29.) Bishop He- 
bek, in the account of his journey 
from Bareilly towards the Hima- 
layas, describes the Kaja Grour- 
man Sing, "mounted on a little 
female elephant, hardly bigger 
than a Durham ox, and almost as 
shaggy as a poodle." — Journ., ch. 
xvii. It will be remembered that 
the mammoth discovered in 1803 
embedded in icy soil in Siberia, 
was covered with a coat of long 
hair, with a sort of wool at the 
roots. Hence there arose the ques- 
tion whether that northern region 
had been formerly inhabited by a 
race of elephants, so fortified by na- 
ture against cold ; or whether the in- 
dividual discovered had been borne 
thither by currents from some more 
temperate latitudes. To the latter 
theory the presence of hair seemed 
a fatal objection ; but so far as my 
own observation goes, I believe the 
elephants are more or less provided 
with hair. In some it is more 
developed than in others, and it is 
particularly observable in the young, 
which when captured are frequently 
covered with a woolly fleece, es- 
pecially about the head and 
shoulders. In the older individu- 
als in Ceylon, this is less apparent : 
and in captivity the hair appears 
to be altogether removed by the 
custom of the mahouts to rub their 
skin daily with oil and a rough 
lump of burned clay. See a paper 
on the subject, Asiat. Journ. N. S. 
vol. siv. p. 182, by Mr., Gr. Eair- 
HOLME. 
P 4 
