Tusker

“ This is more readily seen in the case of a tusker than any other, because in a herd he is generally the object of the keenest pursuit by the hunters. On such occasions the others do their utmost to protect him from danger: when driven to extremity they place their leader in the centre and crowd so eagerly in front of him that the sportsmen have to shoot a number which they might otherwise have spared. ”

“ Twice I have broken through the pack.”
“The pack? What is that?” said Tusker curiously.
“There are twenty or more of them,” replied the mountain boar. “Dogs of mixed breed, some large, some small, all savage. With them come the stalkers, and in the track of the stalkers comes the hunter, and when he reaches me I must die. I have tried every trick known to me, you will learn in your time what they are, but now I am not sure if I shall get to the hills. I must seek a lair now and sleep. Perhaps this good food and a quiet rest will restore my strength.” ”

“ Stumptail to Tusker. "Can we wait here another day or two?"
"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Stumptail," said the kind, old head elephant. "You know the herd will never go faster than the mothers and baby elephants can travel."
And this is true, as any old elephant hunter will tell you.
"Thank you," said Mr. Stumptail, to Tusker; for elephants are polite to each other, even though, in the jungle, they sometimes may be a bit rough toward lions and tigers, of whom they are afraid.
Back to the mother elephant and Baby Umboo went Mr. Stumptail, to tell them there was no hurry about the herd marching away. ”

“ They can be used to make their lazy brothers work. In such cases a good big tusker is employed. He digs his tusks into the side of the idle one, and forces him to take up his log. Sometimes the beasts fight amongst themselves, and then they seem to aim chiefly at biting off one another's tails. ”

“ Meanwhile Tusker rumbled through a scrub so dense and prickly that, by taking a sudden turn in a thicket, he was able to let the pack pass him. Quick as thought he doubled on his own tracks a little way, then turned sharp to the right avoiding the huntsman and his party, and made straight for a little river. ”

“ Perhaps this animal was measured by throwing a rope over its back, and accepting one-half as the height, which would be at least twelve inches in excess of what it should be. The herds in Ceylon are generally families, and, as a rule, greatly resemble each other. The most powerful tusker is the leader, though a strong-minded female is often implicitly obeyed. Tennent considers that a herd recognizes the tusker-in-chief as a leader, and will support him in danger. ”

“ He's as clean and straight and plucky a young fellow as ever I met, and ef ye're true to yerself, Tusker, he'll be able ter go back home ter his friends, and hold his head up before the world. Tusker, thar was a man same as you came to a town called Hopeville, this many months back, and got a young smith ter forge a key, stuffin' him with some simple yarn. That young chap war Jack here. He got suspicious, and happened by chance ter discover that the man fer whom he'd made the key were about ter attempt a burglary with a mate. ”

“ He may take to wandering into cultivation at night and feeding on the crops, as wild elephants often do. The villagers naturally object to this, light fires around their fields, and turn out with torches, horns and drums to scare the intruders off. The herds are generally easily stampeded; but sometimes the surly old tusker, enraged at having his meal of succulent grain disturbed, charges the peasants and perhaps kills one or two of them. ”

“ An experienced female is introduced; she marches up to the tusker, and very shortly all sense of his situation vanishes from his “half-human mind.” The fascinating creature who is made to cajole him has a man on her neck whose voice and motions direct her in everything she does ”

“ Then the patient was gently rolled on to his wounded side again.
"Thet aer takin' a lesson from Mother Nature," said Steve, surveying Tusker with some satisfaction. "He is still losing blood from the lung, as you kin see from what's coming from his lips. But that 'ere girth, and layin' him on his side, will quieten the movements of his chest, and jest give him a chance. Gee! I never worked harder to save a man. I feel as anxious about him as ef he war my father, and, I kin tell yer, it means a hull heap ter young Jack thar ef Tusker pulls round." ”

“ The female elephant uses her tusks to scrape the barks from trees; but the large tusks of the males are designed as a defence,—the elephant with the finest tusks ruling the herd,—and terrific wounds are made by them. The elephant Conqueror, in this country, was killed by being gored in this way; and in India, when it is necessary at the government corral to subdue a mad elephant, a reliable tusker is provided with steel tusks, or glavies, which fit over the stumps of the others, and with these they do terrible work. ”

“ The tuskers are valued the most; as with their stout tusks they lift lumber, and do much heavy labor, the trunk being used less than is generally supposed. In lifting a heavy burden by a rope, the male elephant does not haul by its trunk, but places it over one tusk, and takes the end with its teeth, and thus has a purchase that the female, who relies upon her teeth alone, does not possess. Long tusks are not necessary ”

“ It cannot be said that a large herd has any supreme leader. Tuskers never interest themselves in the movement of their herds; they wander much alone, either to visit cultivation, where the females, encumbered with young ones, hesitate to follow, or from a love of solitude. Single elephants found wandering in the forests are usually young males—animals debarred from much intimate association with the herds by stronger rivals; but they usually keep within a few miles of their companions. These wandering tuskers are only biding their time until they are able to meet all comers in a herd. ”

“ If they are approached from the wind, they scent danger from afar: but the experienced hunter creeps up against the wind, and ordinary caution enables him to approach within thirty or forty feet,—quite near enough, my readers would think, when one knows, that, upon the first shot, the entire herd will charge madly in any and every direction. The old tuskers, the heads of the family, rarely cover the retreat of a herd when an attack is made, usually starting off on their own account, leaving the others to look out for themselves. ”

“ These fellows creep on all-fours amid the undergrowth. They are as invisible as snakes. They are armed with long knives, with which they cut the tendons of the elephants' hind-legs, just below the knee. If an elephant tries to walk after that tendon has been severed, it falls to the ground and breaks its leg. The great beasts seem to know this, for they remain motionless as statues. When all the finest tuskers have been thus disposed of, I come with my rifle and shoot them, one after the other. Thus it is that I have collected a great store of tusks."
Edward Harden made a wry face. ”

“ In a herd of this size it is remarkable how few elephants there are that are fit for training—only eight in this case. They must be young, strong, and well built, with promise of good tusks. The cutting-out proceedings opened in a truly circus- [Pg 238] like style. The exit by the side of the pavilion was opened, and seven of the largest tame tuskers entered in single file, led by the king’s chief mahout mounted on a superb animal. ”

“ Long rows of giant tuskers stand with swaying heads, each with his howdah beside him—towering brutes such as the old kings of Asia rode into battle, to the terror of their enemies. The herds of disdainful camels are kneeling in roaring protest against the camp loads. ”

“ The hunts in Siam are for tuskers, and the females are for the most part allowed to run free again to breed. The tuskers are used in the teak forests for handling logs. The females bear young about every three years until they reach an age of from seventy to seventy-five years. ”

“ One Kādir, named Viapoori Muppan, is still held in the memory of Europeans, who made a good living, in days gone by, by shooting tuskers, and had one arm blown off by the bursting of a gun. He is reputed to have been a much married man, greatly addicted to strong drinks, and to have flourished on the proceeds of his tusks. At the present day, if a Kādir finds tusks, he must declare the find as treasure-trove, and hand it over to Government, who rewards him at the rate of Rs. ”

“ All the great up-country produce is packed by them through the jungle to the waterways, over roads made by themselves and quite impassable for any other beast of burden. Therefore the capture of young tuskers to be tamed and trained for this work forms, perhaps, the event of the year to the natives.
The kraal at Ayuthia is four hundred feet square, formed of teak-wood logs, set about two feet apart and fifteen feet high, bound strongly with iron and forming a barrier which is seldom broken even by the strongest tuskers. ”

“ There were bull-elephants in the prime of life, from twenty-five to thirty-five years old, with great heads, short, thick legs bowed out with masses of muscle, and bodies with straight backs sloping to the long, well-feathered tails. Most of them were tuskers—and the sight of one magnificent bull near Dermot made the sportsman's trigger-finger itch, so splendid were its tusks—shapely, spreading outward and upward in a graceful sweep, and each nearly six feet in length along the outside curve. ”

“ Men who have been fortunate enough to kill an elephant, and rich enough to be able to use part of the tusks for their own purposes, generally cut off a foot or so from the base of each tusk for the purpose of making armlets, at once trophies of their valor and proofs of their wealth. The reader is perhaps aware that the tusk of an elephant, though hard and solid at the point, is soft at the base, and has only a mere shell of hard ivory, the interior being filled with the soft vascular substance by which the tusk is continually lengthened and enlarged. ”

“ It is the opinion of many, that these tusks might have been reversed in the living animal, with their points downwards; but as we know not the kind of enemy it had to fear, we judged only by analogy in giving them the direction of the elephant, especially as we know of no other carnivorous animal with only eight grinders and two tusks: Neither the tusk itself, nor the cavities for the reception of them, could assist in the determination, as they were both very straight, and would equally answer one way as the other.
There is one bone less in the neck of this animal than in the elephant ”

“ The large proportion of very small tusks which are now brought to market annually is a sure indication of the increasing number of elephants that die young. To show to what size these tusks might attain, the American consul states that there was in a Sheffield showroom an African elephant’s tusk nine feet long, twenty-one inches in girth, and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. The value of the tusk was one hundred and thirty pounds, and it is said that an animal large enough and strong enough to carry such a pair would attract far more attention than Jumbo did. ”

“ Then the legs are much longer than those of the Indian elephant, while the trunk, instead of having one finger-like projection at the tip, has two, one in front and one behind. Both the male and female animal, as a rule, possess tusks, while in Indian elephants these weapons are only occasionally present in the male, and hardly ever in the female.
The tusks of the male elephant, however, are always much larger than those of his mate, and sometimes they grow to a very great size. A length of nine feet is not very uncommon, while tusks ten feet long, or even more, have sometimes been recorded. ”

“ The tusks of the wild boar, especially those of the lower jaw, are so long and sharp, that the animal makes use of them as a bull does of his horns. The upper ones rest directly upon the lower, and his constant grinding of them, especially when he is enraged, soon wears the points into a broad and sharp edge. United, these tusks form a perfect circle five or six inches in diameter. The services of our surgeon, Dr. Gallegos, were immediately called into requisition, who dressed the wound, while the companions of the suffering hunter endeavored to avenge him. ”

“ Note especially that the tusk of the upper jaw grows upward from the first. No part of it is directed into the mouth. This tusk is of extraordinary size, and it curves upwards so as to touch, and sometimes even to pierce, the skull. They are, as compared with those of other swine, slender tusks, more especially the under ones. The upper tusk grows through the skin of the upper lip. In old animals, when it is well curved, it must be useless as a weapon. It may serve to protect the eyes when the animal rushes through brushwood. In the female the tusks are small. ”

“ When the tusks get broken—a not uncommon thing—he must remain toothless or “tuskless” for the rest of his life. Although the elephant may consider the loss of his huge tusks a great calamity, were he only a little wiser, he would break them off against the first tree. It would, in all probability, be the means of prolonging his life; for the hunter would not then consider him worth the ammunition it usually takes to kill him.
After a short consultation among the hunters, Swartboy started off upon the spoor, followed by Von Bloom and Hendrik. ”