ELEPHANT— GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 
407 
and in such cases the consciousness of degradation betrayed by 
the looks and attitudes of the culprit is quite sufficient to 
identify him, and to excite a feeling of sympathy and pity. 
The elephant’s obedience to his keeper is the result of affec- 
tion, as well as of fear; and although his attachment becomes 
so strong that an elephant in Ceylon has been known to remain 
out all night, without food, rather than abandon his mahout, 
lying intoxicated in the jungle, yet he manifests little difficulty 
in yielding the same submission to a new driver in the event 
of a change of attendants. 1 
Lastly, Sir E. Tennent writes : — 
One evening, whilst riding in the vicinity of Candy, towards 
the scene of the massacre of Major Dabies’ party in 1803, my 
horse evinced some excitement at a noise which approached us 
in the thick jungle, and which consisted of a repetition of the 
ejaculation urmph ! urmph ! in a hoarse and dissatisfied tone. 
A turn in the forest explained the mystery, by bringing us face 
to face with a tame elephant, unaccompanied by any attendant. 
He was labouring painfully to carry a heavy beam of timber, 
which he balanced across his tusks, but, the pathway being 
narrow, he was forced to bend his head to one side to permit it 
to pass endways ; and the exertion and this inconvenience 
combined led him to utter the dissatisfied sounds which dis- 
turbed the composure of my horse. On seeing us halt, the 
elephant raised his head, reconnoitred us for a moment, then 
filing down the timber, and voluntarily forced himself back- 
wards among the brushwood so as to leave a passage, of which 
he expected us to avail ourselves. My horse hesitated : the 
elephant observed it, and impatiently thrust himself deeper 
into the jungle, repeating his cry of urmph ! but in a voice 
evidently meant to encourage us to advance. Still the horse 
trembled ; and, anxious to observe the instinct of the two 
sagacious animals, I forebore any interference : again the 
elephant of his own accord wedged himself further in amongst 
the trees, and manifested some impatience that we did not pass 
him. At length the horse moved forward ; and when we were 
fairly past, I saw the wise creature stoop and take up its heavy 
burden, trim and balance it on its tusks, and resume its route 
as before, hoarsely snorting its discontented remonstrance. 
Dr. Erasmus Darwin records an observation which 
was communicated to him by a 6 gentleman of undoubted 
1 Natural History of Ceylon , pp, 181-9L 
