218 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. VII. 
tions, the activity of his eye, and the earnestness of his 
attitudes, can only be comprehended by being seen. In 
moving timber and masses of rock his trunk is the in- 
strument on which he mainly relies, but those which 
have tusks turn them to good account. To get a weighty 
stone out of a hollow an elephant will kneel down so as 
to apply the pressure of his head to move it upwards, 
then steadying it with one foot till he can raise himself, 
he will apply a fold of his trunk to shift it to its place, 
and fit it accurately in position : this done, he will step 
round to view it on either side, and adjust it with due 
precision. He appears to gauge his task by his eye, and 
to form a judgment whether the weight be proportion- 
ate to his strength. If doubtful of his own power, he 
hesitates and halts, and if urged against his will, he roars 
and shows temper. 
In clearing an opening through forest land, the power 
of the African elephant, and the strength ascribed to him 
by a recent traveller, as displayed in uprooting trees, have 
never been equalled or approached by anything I have 
seen of the elephant in Ceylon 1 or heard of them in India. 
1 "Here the trees were large and the trees thus broken lay so thick 
handsome, but not strong enough across one another, that it was 
to resist the inconceivable strength almost impossible to ride through 
of the mighty monarch of these the district." — ■ Ibid., p. 310. 
forests ; almost every tree had half Mr. Gordon Cumming does not 
its branches broken short by them name the trees which he saw thus 
and at every hundred yards I came "uprooted" and "broken across," 
upon entire trees, and these, the nor has he given any idea of their 
largest in the forest, tiprooted clean size and weight; but Major Den- 
out of the ground, and brolcen short ham, who observed like traces of 
across their stems." — A Hunter's the elephant in Africa, saw only 
Life in South Africa. ByR. Gok- small trees overthrown by them; 
don Gumming, vol. ii. p. 305. — and Mr. Pringle, who had an 
" Spreading out from one another, opportunity of observing similar 
they smash and destroy all the practices of the animals in the 
finest trees in the forest which neutral territory of the Eastern 
happen to be in their course. . . . frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, 
I have rode through forests where describes their ravages as being 
