Chap. VH.] THE ELEPHANT. 



217 



till a captured elephant begins to relish food, and grow 

 fat upon it, he becomes so fretted by work, that it kills 

 him in an incredibly short space of time. 



The first employment to which an elephant is put is 

 to tread clay in a brick-field, or to draw a waggon in 

 double harness with a tame companion. But the work 

 in which the display of sagacity renders his labours of 

 the highest value, is that which involves the use of heavy 

 materials ; and hence in dragging and piling timber, or 

 moving stones 1 for the construction of retaining walls 

 and the approaches to bridges, his services in an un- 

 opened country are of the utmost importance. When 

 roads are to be constructed along the face of steep de- 

 clivities, and the space is so contracted that risk is in- 

 curred either of the working elephant falling over the 

 precipice or of rocks slipping down from above, not only 

 are the measures to which he resorts the most judicious 

 and reasonable that could be devised, but if urged by his 

 keeper to adopt any other, he manifests a reluctance 

 sufficient to show that he has balanced in his own mind 

 the comparative advantages of each. An elephant ap- 

 pears on all occasions to comprehend the purpose and 

 object that he is expected to promote, and hence he vo- 

 luntarily executes a variety of details without any 

 guidance whatever from his keeper. This is one cha- 

 racteristic in which this animal manifests a superiority 

 over the horse ; although his strength in proportion to 

 his weight is not so great as that of the latter. 



His minute motions when engrossed by such opera- 



1 A correspondent informs me means of a rope, which he either 



that on the Malabar coast of India, draws with his forehead, or ma- 



the elephant, when employed in nages by seizing it in his teeth, 

 dragging stones, moves them by 



