AGE. 
275 
ignorant of the value of the precious article, 
reared their huts upon ivory stanchions ; and that 
ivory pillars and doors were common among them.” 
The elephant is a long-lived animal, a fact of which 
there is sufficient evidence in the remarkable forma¬ 
tion and durability of its teeth, and the number of 
years that elapse (variously estimated from twenty- 
five to forty-five) before it arrives at maturity. But 
to what age it actually attains does not seem quite 
clear. It is on record, however, that, even in a 
state of captivity, it has been known to exist from 
one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty 
years. We read, indeed, in the life of Apollonius 
of Tyana (a book of somewhat doubtful authority), 
that at the tremendous battle on the banks of the 
river Hydaspes, where Alexander the Great broke 
the power of the Indian Prince, Porus, a great num¬ 
ber of elephants were captured by the Macedonians, 
and amongst the rest, the Monarch’s own, called 
Ajax, and that three hundred and fifty years after 
this remarkable event, a traveller, who at that 
period visited India, saw, as he himself informs us, 
this identical elephant, 6 ‘ which the inhabitants per¬ 
fumed with sweet odours and adorned with gar¬ 
lands. On his tusks were rings of gold, on which 
was inscribed, in Greek characters, c Alexander, 
son of Jupiter, dedicated Ajax to the sun.’ ” The 
Pomans, in the time of Gordian, adopted the 
elephant as the symbol of eternity. 
But great as may be the age to which the 
elephant attains when in captivity, there can be 
little doubt he lives much longer when in a state of 
unrestrained freedom* t 2 
