Chap. VII.] THE ELEPHANT. 



209 



Another favourite doctrine of the earlier visitors to 

 the East seems to me to be equally fallacious ; Pyrard, 

 Bernier, Phillipe, Thevenot, and other travellers in 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, proclaimed the 

 superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, in size, strength, 

 and sagacity, above those of all other parts of India 1 ; 

 and Tavernier in particular is supposed to have stated 

 that if a Ceylon elephant be introduced amongst those 

 bred in any other place, by an instinct of nature they 

 do him homage by laying their trunks to the ground, 

 and raising them reverentially. This passage has been 

 so repeatedly quoted in works on Ceylon that it has 

 passed into an aphorism, and is always adduced as a 

 testimony to the surpassing intelligence of the elephants 

 of that island ; although a reference to the original shows 

 that Tavernier's observations are not only fanciful in 

 themselves, but are restricted to the supposed excellence 



Elephant and the Sphynx, Classical 

 Journal, No. lx. Although the 

 trained elephant nowhere appears 

 upon the monuments of the Egyp- 

 tians, the animal was not unknown 

 to them, and ivory and elephants 

 are figured on the walls of Thebes 

 and Karnac amongst the spoils of 

 Thothmes III., and the tribute 

 paid to Kameses I. The Island of 

 Elephantine, in the Nile, near 

 Assouan (Syene) is styled in hiero- 

 glyphical writing " The Land of 

 the Elephant ; " but as it is a mere 

 rock, it probably owes its designa- 

 tion to its form. See Sir Gard- 

 ner Wilkinson's Ancient Egyp- 

 tians, vol. i. pi. iv.; vol. v. p. 176. 

 Above the first cataract of the Nile 

 are two small islands, each bearing 

 the name of Phylse; — quaere, is 

 the derivation of this word at all 

 connected with the Arabic term 

 filt See ante, p. 76, note. The 



elephant figured in the sculptures 

 of Nineveh is universally as wild, 

 not domesticated. 



1 This is merely a reiteration of 

 the statement of iEuAN, who as- 

 cribes to the elephants of Taprobane 

 a vast superiority in size, strength, 

 and intelligence, above those of 

 continental India, — Kal oid4 ye 

 vf](ri(*)Tcu ih4(pavT€S tcov 7]ir€ipccra>v 

 aKKijJLwTepoi re rfyu pw/xyju Kal /ne'i^ovs 

 i$e?v elal, Kal ^v/jLO(To(j)dorepOL <5e irdvra 

 irdvrr) Kpivoivro avT — JElian, De 

 Nat. Anim., lib. xvi. cap. xviii. 



-ZElian also, in the same chap- 

 ter, states the fact of the ship- 

 ment of elephants in large boats 

 from Ceylon to the opposite conti- 

 nent of India, for sale to the king 

 of Kalinga; so that the export 

 from Manaar, described in a former 

 passage, has been going on appa- 

 rently without interruption since 

 the time of the Komans. 



