Asian elephant

“ At the present time the Asiatic elephant is found in a wild state in most of the forest-covered tracts of India, Ceylon, Assam, Burma, Siam, Cochin-China, Sumatra, and Borneo; whilst the African species, although it has been hunted out of large tracts of country in South and South-western Africa, still inhabits the greater part of the continent south of the Sahara, and in many districts of Central Africa appears to be extraordinarily abundant. In the Cape Colony two herds still exist under the protection of the Government. ”

“ The appearance of the Asiatic elephant is familiar to all. In the wild state it is gregarious, associating in herds of ten, twenty or more individuals, and, though it may under certain circumstances become dangerous, it is generally inoffensive and even timid, fond of shade and solitude and the neighbourhood of water. ”

“ When we collect what is known respecting the distribution of both species of Asiatic Elephants, it seems that this animal is met with eastward of the Indus throughout the whole of Hindostan, Bengal, and the wide districts of Further India to Siam and Cochin- China, and also on the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra; that one of the species, E. sumatranus, has only yet been met with on the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra, [8] whilst the so-called Indian Elephant has been brought to Europe exclusively from Continental India. ”

“ The Asiatic elephant often lies down when resting and sleeping. This is in marked contrast to the African species, which, if it ever does lie down at all, except to roll in mud or rub itself against an ant-heap, can only do so very rarely, since in all my experience, though I have seen some thousands of African elephants standing sleeping during the heat of the day, I have never yet seen one of these animals lying down, nor found the impress in the ground where one had been so lying. ”

“ The tame elephant would be especially valuable to an explorer, as it could march through streams too deep for the passage of oxen, and in swimming rivers it would be proof against the attacks of crocodiles. So few African elephants have been tamed in proportion to those of Asia that it would be difficult to pronounce an opinion upon their character when domesticated, but it is generally believed by their trainers that the Indian species is more gentle and amenable to discipline. The power of the African is far in excess of the Asiatic. ”

“ We are, therefore, at liberty to devote a page or two to an animal created by nature to humiliate us. And, to begin with, it cannot fail to be a matter of astonishment that the elephant is not in Africa, as in Asia, trained to the service of man. One reason given for this contrast is, that the African elephant has so much more savage a nature than his Asiatic brother, that it is impossible to tame or train him. ”

“ It is only in the East Indies that the elephants are so far improved, for in Africa they can scarcely tame them. The Asiatics, anciently civilized, have reduced the education of the elephant into a system, and they have instructed and modified him according to their manners. ”

“ Elephants are found both in Asia and Africa, but they are of different species, the Asiatic elephant having five toes, and the African, three. These animals are caught by stratagem, and, when tamed, they are the most gentle, obedient, and patient, as well as the most docile and sagacious of all quadrupeds. They are used to carry burdens, and for traveling. Their attachment to their masters is remarkable; and they seem to live but to serve and obey them. ”

“ But it has also been occasionally seen in many other species, as monkeys, squirrels, moles, pigs, and even cows and horses, and, to come a little closer to our present subject, in goats and deer. Not even that massive and stupendous beast the Elephant is exempted from its influence. It can hardly be necessary to recall to the reader the title on which the ruler of millions of not uncivilized Asiatics, the Burmese monarch, prides himself more than on any other, inasmuch as it is the emblem of power and prosperity, that of Lord of the White Elephant ”

“ The strength of the elephant is proverbial; and in India and Burma, where this animal has for ages past been trained in the service of man, this power is habitually made use of in moving and stacking large baulks of timber, or in dragging heavy guns through muddy ground or up steep ascents. In Africa the traveller is often astonished at the size of trees which have been uprooted and overturned by elephants. ”

“ According to him, the African elephant is as well fitted for labor as the Asiatic, and could be as easily tamed and trained. That this is the case is amply proved by the state of docility to which the male and female African elephants in the London Zoölogical Garden have been reduced by their keeper. They are just as obedient, intelligent, and free from vice as their Asiatic congeners, and there appears to be no room for doubt that they might be utilized to just as good purpose. ”

“ There are two species of the elephant, the Asiatic and African; they are much alike, though there is some difference in the teeth. In Africa, the people never train the elephant to any useful purposes, but in Asia this is quite common. In India, the animal is taught to carry burdens, and it performs a great deal of labor. ”

“ The manner of hunting and taming the wild elephant, in Asia, is curious. In the middle of a forest, where these animals are known to abound, a large piece of ground is marked out, and surrounded with strong stakes driven into the earth, interwoven with branches of trees. One end of this enclosure is narrow, and it gradually widens till it takes in a great extent of country. Several thousand men are employed to surround the herd of elephants, and to prevent their escape. ”

“ There is nothing to show that the African elephant is worse tempered than the Asiatic. It has never been reclaimed by the natives, and that fact no doubt has given rise to the opinion. In the Carthaginian, Numidian, and Roman provinces, this species was made use of very much as the other is now in India, and most if not all the famous homicidal elephants we know of, belonged to the latter country. ”

“ The young weigh about two hundred pounds at birth, and attain to over eight thousand pounds at thirty years, when they have reached maturity. At sixty an Elephant is counted in his prime, and many live to be a hundred or even a hundred and fifty years old. Eleven feet is the extreme height of the Asiatic Elephant. His specific gravity is so great that in swimming rivers his whole body disappears below the surface; but this gives him no trouble, as he breathes by thrusting the tip of his trunk above the water and can surge up enough to get one eye out when he wishes to see where he is going. ”

“ Elephant.—In Siam it is believed that a white elephant may contain the soul of a dead person, perhaps a Buddha; when one is taken the capturer is rewarded and the animal brought to the king to be kept ever afterwards; it cannot be bought or sold. It is baptized and fêted and mourned for like a human being at its death. In some parts of Indo-China the belief is that the soul of the elephant may injure people after death ”

“ All the tame elephants here, however, were once wild, including the fifty which, with swords, dragons, bells, krises with gold scabbards, and a few other gold articles, formed the Perak regalia. The herds are hunted with tame, steady elephants, and on a likely one being singled out, he is driven by slow degrees into a strong inclosure, and there attached by stout rattan ropes to an experienced old elephant, and fed on meager diet for some weeks, varied with such dainties as sugar-cane and sweet cakes. ”

“ The Asiatic, or "Indian" elephant, which is confined to India, Ceylon, Burma, and the Malay countries, still roams the jungles as a wild animal, but every herd is known to and protected by the local governments, and from time to time these are rounded up, and young ones are captured and [Pg 303] trained to man's service. Only in this way can the domestic supply be maintained, since these elephants rarely produce young when in captivity. ”

“ When the last white elephant was discovered, he was sent to Bangkok on a railway-truck. There was no guard of honour, no procession, and the King only went to visit him when he was lodged in the stables. On the way to the palace the [Pg 78] new-comer behaved himself very badly by walking up to a fruit-seller's stall—the first it had ever seen—and eating up everything that was on it, almost before the attendants had had time to notice what he was doing. Nowadays, the white elephants are badly fed by miserable grooms. They no longer have either priests or dancing-girls. ”

“ It is a most interesting and exceptional fact that these captive elephants, though bred in perfect freedom and provided with none of those inherited instincts so essentially a part of the value of our other domesticated quadrupeds, become helpful to man and attached to him in a way which is characteristic of none other of our ancient companions except the dog. It is safe to say that the Asiatic elephant is the most innately domesticable, and the best fitted by nature for companionship with man, of all our great quadrupeds. ”

“ We speak of both the Indian and the African proboscidians as elephants, although we style "mammoth" the recently extinct hairy elephant of the north, which was more closely related to the Asiatic elephant than the latter is to its African cousin, and although we use the word "mastodon" to denote a more primitive type of elephant also recently extinct in America. We have no such common term either for the various big cats or for the various horses. Yet the African and Asiatic elephants are far more widely separated from one another than the lion is from the tiger, or even from the jaguar. ”

“ His feet, as measured from his footprints, were two feet broad; and therefore, as the height of an elephant equals double the circumference of his feet, his height would be 12 feet and 3 inches, or greater than that of any of the King of Siam’s elephants. There is a general belief amongst the Burmese and Shans that the spirits of human beings who have been slain by an elephant ride on the animal’s head, warning him of his approach to pitfalls and hunters, and guiding him to where he may kill people, so as to add to their own company. ”

“ On my trips between Bangkok and Singapore, I stopped off many times at Trengganu to renew my acquaintance with the Sultan and to talk with the native hunters, who were sending a steady stream of animals to me at Singapore. I was known to the natives throughout the Peninsula as Túan Gâjah—Sir Elephant—and I was amused to find that the story of the big elephant hunt had grown to incredible proportions. The herd of sixty elephants became larger each time the story was told. ”

“ Its dark colour and immense surface attract an amount of heat which becomes almost insupportable to the unfortunate creature when forced to carry a heavy load during the hot season in India. Even without a greater weight than its rider, the elephant exhibits signs of distress when marching after 9 a.m. At such times it is disagreeable, as the animal has a peculiar habit of sucking water through the trunk from a supply contained within the stomach, and this it syringes with great force between its fore legs, and against its flanks to cool its sides with the ejected spray. ”

“ We saw troops of wild dogs ("Kuleam," Khas.) , deer, and immense quantities of the droppings of the wild elephant; an animal considered in Assam dangerous to meet, whereas in other parts of India it is not dreaded till provoked. There is, however, no quadruped that varies more in its native state than this: the Ceylon kind differs from the Indian in the larger size and short tusks, and an experienced judge at Calcutta will tell at once whether the newly caught elephant is from Assam, Silhet, Cuttack, Nepal, or Chittagong. ”

“ The trunk has but one pointed tip; there are five nails on the fore- and four on the hind-feet. As this species comes from India and the East, it has been longer as well as better known than the African form. Thus many of the stories and legends that have congregated round Elephants apply really to this form. As is well known, the Indian Elephant is much used as a beast of burden, and for other purposes where its huge strength renders it invaluable. But its great drawback as a servant of man is its great independability. ”

“ He can push a cannon across a bog, carry a load over a mountain, and help sportsmen hunt and kill tigers. East Indian rulers all have troops of elephants to use in warfare, and to ride in royal processions. In Siam, the white elephant is a sacred animal and has a place on the national flag.
How old and wise the elephant in the menagerie looks. It is very comical to see such a heavy, clumsy animal stand on his hind legs or his head, dance to music, blow a horn, beat a drum, ring a bell or fire a gun. ”

“ Of many parts of Asia and Africa. The elephant is the largest quadruped now in existence; it is extremely sagacious, docile and friendly: in the countries where they live they are trained to useful labor, and by their great strength are enabled to perform tasks which a man or horse could not accomplish: among the native princes they were, and even still are, used in war: with them the inhabitants are able to hunt and destroy the lion, tiger, and other beasts of prey. With their long trunk, or proboscis, they can perform almost everything which man can with his hands. ”

“ It is hunted chiefly for the sake of the ivory of its immense tusks, of which it yields the principal source of supply to the European market, and the desire to obtain which is rapidly leading to the extermination of the species. In size the male African elephant often surpasses the Asiatic species, reaching nearly 12 ft. ”

“ His neck is so short and thick that it is very little use for turning, although he can toss his head up and down like a bull.
For such an e-nor-mous animal the elephant is wonderfully active. He can shuffle along, in his clumsy way, nearly as fast as a horse can run. East Indian elephants climb steep mountains as pack animals, and are very sure-footed. All elephants are good swimmers and hard fighters if attacked. They can charge the enemy like cavalry horses. Their tusks are terrible weapons, and no other animal living has such a wonderful tool-chest as the elephant's trunk. ”