Jumbo the elephant

“ To the circus of the present day, the elephant is invaluable. People tire of the old jokes of the clown, and of the time-worn bare-back riding, but the elephant possesses a peculiar fascination; and, the more it is observed, the more there is to admire. This was, I think, particularly true of Jumbo, who, though he had no tricks to display, was a never-failing source of interest. I remember on one occasion, when afforded an opportunity of entering his stable alone, I stood for a long time noting the monotonous, pendulum-like movement of the enormous head and trunk as it swayed from side to side ”

“ He twined his trunk about my body like a flash, and placed me out of harm’s way between his legs; then stood firmly and stretched out his trunk, as rigid as the limb of a large tree, and permitted not an elephant to get past it. Again and again the crowd of maddened creatures tried to force its way, but Jumbo remained firm and determined until the keepers secured the entire lot. Had Jumbo not prevented the elephants from going out of the enclosure, the loss of life would no doubt have been great. ”

“ He is an African elephant, and Sir Samuel Baker, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, who knows a great deal about elephants, says that he knew Jumbo when he was a baby about four and a half feet high, and had just been captured by Arabs on the shore of the Settite River, in Abyssinia, in 1861. Now Jumbo, the pride of the English Zoo, is twenty-one years old, and measures eleven feet in height to his withers, which is the high ridge between the shoulder-blades just at the end of the neck. He is very skillful in catching buns and apples which are thrown to him by his young admirers. ”

“ When Jumbo had grown into a good-sized Elephant Boy, I suggested that we ought to get him a sweetheart, so that, although he was a prisoner, chained and manacled in the Zoölogical Gardens, London, he would have a companion through life of his own race. So, having Jumbo entirely under my own care and management, I persuaded our Garden Directors to send to Africa for a female baby elephant. ”

“ It is very little satisfaction to one who meets an elephant in his morning's walk, in a narrow way, to have read that that creature is the most gentle of mammals (or mammoths) ; and similarly there was no knowing what catastrophe might not take place from the presence of Jumbo, though he might not mean to bring it about. He was positively too tremendous for society; while, out-of-doors, I never knew a dog so respected—and avoided—by other dogs.
To see Jumbo and Fluff together was to behold the meeting of two extremes of the animal creation ”

“ Elephants hate the sea. They love a quiet bath as much as any Christians; but the indignity and terror of being slung on board a ship, and tossed about in the agony of sea-sickness, which is probably on a scale with the size of their stomachs, would appear to them worse than death. Yet to this doom the children’s ‘dear old Jumbo’ is condemned; and it is enough, if he knew of it, to precipitate that insanity which his guardians have pretended to fear. It is true Mr. Barnum holds out hopes that we may some day see again the colossal form of the public favorite. ”

“ Lovesport finds an elephant asleep under some trees. He has only one attendant with him, a negro, named Jumbo; and this man takes it into his head that he will tie the elephant’s leg to a tree with some strong rope he has, while it sleeps: and see what it will do when it wakes up. He had just finished his work when the huge creature awoke. In a moment the rope was snapped, but unluckily Jumbo was entangled in it, and remained for a moment attached to the elephant’s leg, which he had to cling to that it might not step on him. ”

“ But you are not a Jumbo yet, though I hope you will be some day. Jumbo was two feet higher than you are and weighed about a ton more. But you are only a child yet. Your proper age to live is about a century and a half. If you only keep alive you'll see some strange things, Jingo, before you go to the place where all good elephants go. There was an artillery elephant the other day fighting for the Queen in Burmah who had fought for George III. just a hundred years before. And he was the finest elephant in the army then—that was in 1790. ”

“ The girth of the fore-foot when the pressure of the animal's weight was exerted, was exactly half the perpendicular height of the elephant. I have seen very much larger animals in Africa, but there is nothing in India to approach the size of Jumbo.
There is no reason why the African elephants should not be tamed and made useful, but the difficulty lies in obtaining them in any great numbers. The natives of Africa are peculiarly savage, and their instincts of destruction prevent them from capturing and domesticating any wild animals. ”

“ The difference in species is distinct between the Asiatic and the African. It is at all times difficult to give the measurement of a dead animal, especially when so enormous, as the pressure of weight when alive would reduce the height afforded by measurement when the body is horizontal.
The well-known African elephant Jumbo that was sold to America by the Zoological Society of London, was brought up in confinement since its early existence, when it was about 4 feet 6 inches high. ”

“ Jumbo had a great time crossing the sea. A big elephant is a very awkward passenger when he travels by water. He weighs so much that he must be kept in the centre of the ship, and he must be fastened so securely that he can not possibly break loose. Jumbo made the passage in the same box in which he was drawn eight miles from the Zoological Gardens in London to the dock where the great steamer that was to carry him to America lay. ”

“ Barnum's famous African elephant "Jumbo." The East Indian elephant is smaller, more easily captured and tamed. He readily learns to do useful work and to perform tricks. He becomes fond of a kind master, and likes children, dogs and peaceable animals. He is not brighter than the dog, but because of his size and strength and his wonderful tusks and trunk, he can do a great many things that a dog cannot do. In India, the elephant piles half-ton teak logs in lumber yards, and is used in the timber and stone work of roads and bridges. ”

“ American boys and girls whose delight in looking at Jumbo and his celebrated legs may have been clouded by remembering how many of the little English cousins across the sea were lamenting the tall old elephant's absence will be glad to know that a new pet has already been found to take Jumbo's place. ”

“ Of course their cages were all shut up tightly with only breathing places at the top, so the people could not see the animals unless they paid to get into the circus. But the elephants and camels were so big they had not shut them up, and who should Billy see walking off the train but his old, old friend Jumbo, the oldest and finest specimen of elephant in America. He must have been nearly two hundred and fifty years old, his keeper said. Elephants frequently live to be that age and sometimes three hundred. After Jumbo came Maggie, dear old complaining Maggie, the old maid camel of the flock. ”

“ Selflessness patient, judgment even-handed,
And spirit calmly fair!
To turn from grave to gay, I may round off this collection with two zoological elegies. When "Jumbo," the famous elephant at the Zoo, whose purchase by Barnum and departure from London had provoked a grotesque explosion of sentimentality, was killed by a railway accident in America in 1885, Punch recorded his decease in the following epigram:—
Alas, poor Jumbo! ”

“ The African Elephant, thinks Sir Samuel Baker, reaches a height of about 12 feet, and it will be remembered that the notorious "Jumbo" was found to be 11 feet high at the shoulder. The tusks are found in both sexes, as in the Indian beast, but are relatively larger in the female in the species now under consideration. It is also a rather more active creature, and is more savage ”

“ The summit of the head of the Indian species forms a pyramid, while the front, or forehead, is concave. In Jumbo the front of the head was somewhat convex, the eye was larger; and when we compare the feet, we find that while the African elephant has, as a rule, four nails on each foot, the Asiatic has four on each hind-foot, and five on each fore-foot. The number of nails often varies with individuals. The Indian natives esteem those animals most which possess five on each fore-foot, and four on each hind-foot, or eighteen, odd numbers being considered unlucky. ”

“ One of the sailors of the vessel found this out. The man was washing his clothes near Jumbo's box, and he rudely slapped the elephant's trunk to make him move it out of the way. This was, in Jumbo's opinion, an outrage which no gentleman would offer to a respectable elephant, and he determined to resent it. Presently the man went away, leaving his clean clothes within Jumbo's reach. The latter instantly seized them, wiped the deck with them until they were far blacker than before they had been washed, and with a sweet smile, handed them back to the astonished sailor. ”

“ At first Betty was somewhat frightened at seeing the big elephant, but then she felt that if the little chickens were so friendly with him, he must certainly be friendly.
“The elephant stayed some time with the animals of the barnyard and with Betty. But one morning bright and early she found Jumbo with an old ball and bat in his great trunk. He was practising baseball so he would not be put off the team when he got back to the circus for he had been planning for some time to return to his first friends. ”

“ It is also curious to notice how the size of Jumbo strikes so many as being somehow very creditable to Behemoth. But praise of such a kind is hardly worth the acceptance of even the hippopotamus. “The wisdom of God,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “receives small honor from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about and, with a gross rusticity, admire His works;” and it is certainly gross rusticity to attribute credit to the elephant for being big. After all, he is not so big as other creatures living, nor as he himself might have been a few centuries ago. ”

“ The most striking fact about the elephant is its enormous size. It is only exceeded among living animals by whales; it is far larger than the biggest bull, or rhinoceros, or hippopotamus. A fair-sized Indian elephant weighs two to three tons (Jumbo, one of the African species, weighed five) , and requires as food 60 lb. ”

“ This is a scene where our hunter was a looker-on, not an actor. He was on one of his expeditions with Jumbo, when they heard the trumpeting sound made by an elephant when angry. Looking through the trees, they saw a huge creature stamping with his feet, and tearing up the grass with his trunk. Presently a rhinoceros approached, as if the two had appointed to meet and fight upon that spot. The battle did not last long. The poor elephant could not guard the under part of its body from its enemy’s horn ”

“ Barnum says, are anxiously waiting to see the great elephant arrive in the States. Then, [68] to increase the general regret, the message depicts the sort of life which poor Jumbo has before him. No more quiet garden-strolls, no shady trees, green lawns, and flowery thickets, peopled with tropical beasts, bright birds, and snakes, making it all quite homely. Our amiable monster must dwell in a tent, take part in the routine of a circus. Mr. Barnum announces the intention of taking his ‘mammoth combination of seven shows’ round the world, via California, Australia, and the Suez Canal. ”

“ Barnum, you who have so many famous animals, and, among them, so many elephants, surely will think seriously and kindly before you take from us our very dear friend Jumbo. About the money for damages—I am sure all our parents in this city, who love their little ones so much, will willingly help to give you back your money, with an extra sum to make up for any expense you may have had concerning him. Do let the kindest side of your nature prevail. Think over the many hearts among us nearly breaking, and ready to do any thing to implore you to give us back Jumbo. ”

“ He deserves to remain, I’m sure, for his fidelity to all his surroundings, and his good temper under all his present trials. I know the American mind is so large, that I have quite expected each day to see in the papers that you would let Jumbo remain in his old home. ”

“ They are by far the largest of all the animals which live upon land. "Jumbo," for instance, the famous African elephant that we in the United States saw in the last century, was nearly twelve feet in height, and weighed more than six tons. A height of ten feet is quite common. ”

“ But before he could reach it, two tame elephants rushed at him, and Gumble-umble was soon bound with strong chains and ropes, so that he could hardly move.
"It is all your fault!" he cried to Tum Tum.
"No, it is your own," said Gumble-umble's papa. "Now you must quiet down and be a good elephant. We are caught, we can go no more to the jungle, but perhaps it is best for us."
So Tum Tum and the wild elephants were thus caught.
For a time the herd of wild elephants was kept inside the fence. ”

“ Their great strength was given them to rule the jungle, not to haul logs and pull chains! The man turned back to the lines and lifted higher his light.
Yes—the little elephant in the light-glow was of the Kumiria. Never had there been a more perfect calf. The light of greed sprang again in his eyes. And as he held the fagot nearer so that the beams played in the elephant's eyes and on his coat, the mahout sat down and was still, lest the gods observe his good luck, and, being jealous, turn it into evil.
The coat was not pinky dark, as is usual in baby elephants. ”