Chap. VIL] 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. Bles, 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- 

 ber, in the account of his journey 

 from Bareilly towards the Hima- 

 layas, describes the Eaja Gour- 

 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. xiv. p. 182, by Mr.. Gr. Fair- 

 holme. 



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