222 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. YII. 
able and obedient to their new driver as to the old, in 
fact so soon as they have become familiarised with his 
voice. 
This is not, however, invariably the case ; and Mr. 
Cripps, who had remarkable opportunities for observing 
the habits of the elephant in Ceylon, mentioned to me 
an instance in which one of a singularly stubborn 
disposition occasioned some inconvenience after the 
death of its keeper, by refusing to obey any other, till 
its attendants bethought them of a child about twelve 
years old, in a distant village, where the animal had 
been formerly picketed, and to whom it had displayed 
much attachment. The child was sent for ; and on its 
arrival the elephant, as anticipated, manifested extreme 
satisfaction, and was managed with ease, till by degrees 
it became reconciled to the presence of a new superin- 
tendent. 
It has been said that the mahouts die young, owing 
to some supposed injury to the spinal column from the 
peculiar motion of the elephant ; but this remark does 
not apply to those in Ceylon, who are healthy, and as 
long lived as other men. If the motion of the elephant 
be thus injurious, that of the camel must be still more 
so ; yet we never hear of early death ascribed to this 
cause by the Arabs. 
The voice of the keeper, with a very limited vocabulary 
of articulate sounds, serves almost alone to guide the 
elephant in his domestic occupations. 1 Sir Everard 
1 The principal sound hy which the sound is so expressive of the 
the mahouts in Ceylon direct the sense that persons in charge of 
motions of the elephants is a repe- animals of almost every descrip- 
tition, with various modulations, of tion throughout the world appear 
the words ur-re ! ur-re ! This is to have adopted it with a concur- 
one of those interjections in which rence that is very curious. The 
