234 
MAMMALIA. 
[Chap. VII. 
said to have been found in the stables by the Dutch on 
the expulsion of the Portugese in 1656. 
It is perhaps from this popular belief in their almost 
illimitable age, that the natives generally assert that the 
body of a dead elephant is seldom or never to be dis- 
covered in the woods. And certain it is that frequenters 
of the forest with whom I have conversed, whether 
European or Singhalese, are consistent in their assur- 
ances that they have never found the remains of an 
elephant that had died a natural death. One chief, the 
Wannyah of the Trincomalie district, told a friend of 
mine, that once after a severe murrain, which had swept 
the province, he found the carcases of elephants that 
had died of the disease. On the other hand, a Euro- 
pean gentleman, who for thirty-six years without 
intermission has been living in the jungle, ascending to 
the summits of mountains in the prosecution of the 
trigonometrical survey, and penetrating valleys in trac- 
ing roads and opening means of communication, — one, 
too, who has made the habits of the wild elephant a 
subject of constant observation and study, — has often 
expressed to me his astonishment that after seeing many 
thousands of living elephants in all possible situations, 
he had never yet found a single skeleton of a dead one, 
except of those which had fallen by the rifle. 1 
It has been suggested that the bones of the elephant 
may be so porous and spongy as to disappear in conse- 
quence of an early decomposition; but this remark would 
1 This remark regarding the ele- woods are frequently found." — 
phant of Ceylon does not appear to African Memoranda relative to an 
extend to that of Africa, as I observe attempt to establish British Settle- 
that Bbavbe, in his African Me- ments at the Island of Bulama K 
moranda, says that "the skeletons Lond. 1815, p. 353. 
of old ones that have died in the 
