222 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. V1L 



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 Everaed 



1 The principal sound by 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- 

 tion, 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 



