Part 17 (1/2)
[Footnote 2: The iron goad with which the keeper directs the movements of the elephants, called a _hendoo_ in Ceylon and _hawkus_ in Bengal, appears to have retained the present shape from the remotest antiquity.
It is figured in the medals of Caracalla in the identical form in which it is in use at the present day in India.
The Greeks called it [Greek: harpe], and the Romans _cuspis_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Medal of Numidia.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Modern Hendoo.]]
For many days the roaring and resistance which attend the operation are considerable, and it often requires the sagacious interference of the tame elephants to control the refractory wild ones. It soon, however, becomes practicable to leave the latter alone, only taking them to and from the stall by the aid of a decoy. This step lasts, under ordinary treatment, for about three weeks, when an elephant may be taken alone with his legs hobbled, and a man walking backwards in front with the point of the hendoo always presented to the elephant's head, and a keeper with an iron crook at each ear. On getting into the water, the fear of being p.r.i.c.ked on his tender back induces him to lie down directly on the crook being only held over him _in terrorem_. Once this point has been achieved, the further process of taming is dependent upon the disposition of the creature.
The greatest care is requisite, and daily medicines are applied to heal the fearful wounds on the legs which even the softest ropes occasion.
This is the great difficulty of training; for the wounds fester grievously, and months and sometimes years will elapse before an elephant will allow his feet to be touched without indications of alarm and anger.
The observation has been frequently made that the elephants most vicious and troublesome to tame, and the most worthless when tamed, are those distinguished by a thin trunk and flabby pendulous ears. The period of tuition does not appear to be influenced by the size or strength of the animals: some of the smallest give the greatest amount of trouble; whereas, in the instance of the two largest that have been taken in Ceylon within the last thirty years, both were docile in a remarkable degree. One in particular, which was caught and trained by Mr. Cripps, when Government agent, in the Seven Korles, fed from the hand the first night it was secured, and in a very few days evinced pleasure on being patted on the head.[1] There is none so obstinate, not even a _rogue_, that may not, when kindly and patiently treated, be conciliated and reconciled.
[Footnote 1: This was the largest elephant that had been tamed in Ceylon; he measured upwards of nine feet at the shoulders and belonged to the caste so highly prized for the temples. He was gentle after his first capture, but his removal from the corral to the stables, though only a distance of six miles, was a matter of the extremest difficulty; his extraordinary strength rendering him more than a match for the attendant decoys. He, on one occasion, escaped, but was recaptured in the forest; and he afterwards became so docile as to perform a variety of tricks. He was at length ordered to be removed to Colombo; but such was his terror on approaching the gate, that on coaxing him to enter the gate, he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to, and _died on the spot_.]
The males are generally more unmaneagable than the females, and in both an inclination to lie down to rest is regarded as a favourable symptom of approaching tractability, some of the most resolute having been known to stand for months together, even during sleep. Those which are the most obstinate and violent at first are the soonest and most effectually subdued, and generally prove permanently docile and submissive. But those which are sullen or morose, although they may provoke no chastis.e.m.e.nt by their viciousness, are always slower in being taught, and are rarely to be trusted in after life.[1]
[Footnote 1: The natives profess that the high caste elephants, such as are allotted to the temples, are of all others the most difficult to tame, and M. BLES, the Dutch correspondent of BUFFON, mentions a caste of elephants which he had heard of, as being peculiar to the Kandyan kingdom, that were not higher than a heifer (genisse), covered with hair, and insusceptible of being tamed. (BUFFON, _Supp._ vol. vi. p.
29.) Bishop HEBER, in the account of his journey from Bareilly towards the Himalayas, describes the Raja Gourman Sing, ”mounted on a little female elephant, hardly bigger than a Durham ox, and almost as s.h.a.ggy as a poodle.”--_Journx._, ch. xvii. It will be remembered that the mammoth discovered in 1803 embedded in icy soil in Siberia, was covered with a coat of long hair, with a sort of wool at the roots. Hence there arose the question whether that northern region had been formerly inhabited by a race of elephants, so fortified by nature against cold; or whether the individual discovered had been borne thither by currents from some more temperate lat.i.tudes. To the latter theory the presence of hair seemed a fatal objection; but so far as my own observation goes, I believe the elephants are more or less provided with hair. In some it is more developed than in others, and it is particularly observable in the young, which when captured are frequently covered with a woolly fleece, especially about the head and shoulders. In the older individuals in Ceylon, this is less apparent: and in captivity the hair appears to be altogether removed by the custom of the mahouts to rub their skin daily with oil and a rough lump of burned clay. See a paper on the subject, _Asiat. Journ._ N.S. vol. xiv. p. 182, by Mr. G. FAIRHOLME.]
But whatever may be its natural gentleness and docility, the temper of an elephant is seldom to be implicitly relied on in a state of captivity and coercion. The most amenable are subject to occasional fits of stubbornness; and even after years of submission, irritability and resentment will unaccountably manifest themselves. It may be that the restraints and severer discipline of training have not been entirely forgotten; or that incidents which in ordinary health would be productive of no demonstration whatever, may lead, in moments of temporary illness, to fretfulness and anger. The knowledge of this infirmity led to the popular belief recorded by PHILE, that the elephant had _two hearts_, under the respective influences of which it evinced ferocity of gentleness; subdued by the one to habitual tractability and obedience, but occasionally roused by the other to displays of rage and resistance.[1]
[Footnote 1: [Greek: ”Diples de phasin euporesai kardias Kai te men einai thumikon to therion Eis akrate kinesin erethismenon, Te de prosenes kai thrasytetos xenon.
Kai pe men auton akroasthai ton logon Ous an tis Indos eu t.i.thaseuon legoi, Pe de pros autous tous nomeis epitrechein Eis tas palaias ektrapen kakoupgias.”]
PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph._, l. 126, &c.]
In the process of taming, the presence of the tame ones can generally be dispensed with after two months, and the captive may then be ridden by the driver alone; and after three or four months he may be entrusted with labour, so far as regards docility;--but it is undesirable, and even involves the risk of life, to work an elephant too soon; it has frequently happened that a valuable animal has lain down and died the first time it was tried in harness, from what the natives believe to be ”broken heart,”--certainly without any cause inferable from injury or previous disease.[1] It is observable, that till a captured elephant begins to relish food, and grow fat upon it, he becomes so fretted by work, that it kills him in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time.
[Footnote 1: Captain YULE, in his _Narrative of an Emba.s.sy to Ava in_ 1855, records an ill.u.s.tration of this tendency of the elephant to sudden death; one newly captured, the process of taming which was exhibited to the British Envoy, ”made vigorous resistance to the placing of a collar on its neck, and the people were proceeding to tighten it, when the elephant, which had lain down as if quite exhausted, reared suddenly on the hind quarters, and fell on its side--_dead_!”--P. 104.
Mr. STRACHAN noticed the same liability of the elephants to sudden death from very slight causes; ”of the fall.” he says, ”at any time, though on plain ground, they either die immediately, or languish till they die; their great weight occasioning them so much hurt by the fall.”--_Phil.
Trans._ A.D. 1701, vol. xxiii. p. 1052.]
The first employment to which an elephant is put is to tread clay in a brick-field, or to draw a waggon in double harness with a tame companion. But the work in which the display of sagacity renders his labours of the highest value, is that which involves the use of heavy materials; and hence in dragging and piling timber, or moving stones[1]
for the construction of retaining walls and the approaches to bridges, his services in an unopened country are of the utmost importance. When roads are to be constructed along the face of steep declivities, and the s.p.a.ce is so contracted that risk is incurred either of the working elephant falling over the precipice or of rocks slipping down from above, not only are the measures to which he resorts the most judicious and reasonable that could be devised, but if urged by his keeper to adopt any other, he manifests a reluctance sufficient to show that he has balanced in his own mind the comparative advantages of each. An elephant appears on all occasions to comprehend the purpose and object that he is expected to promote, and hence he voluntarily executes a variety of details without any guidance whatever from his keeper. This is one characteristic in which this animal manifests a superiority over the horse; although his strength in proportion to his weight is not so great as that of the latter.
[Footnote 1: A correspondent informs me that on the Malabar coast of India, the elephant, when employed in dragging stones, moves them by means of a rope, which he either draws with his forehead, or manages by seizing it in his teeth.]
His minute motions when engrossed by such operations, the activity of his eye, and the earnestness of his att.i.tudes, can only be comprehended by being seen. In moving timber and ma.s.ses of rock his trunk is the instrument on which he mainly relies, but those which have tusks turn them to good account. To get a weighty stone out of a hollow an elephant will kneel down so as to apply the pressure of his head to move it upwards, then steadying it with one foot till he can raise himself, he will apply a fold of his trunk to s.h.i.+ft it to its place, and fit it accurately in position: this done, he will step round to view it on either side, and adjust it with due precision. He appears to gauge his task by his eye, and to form a judgment whether the weight be proportionate to his strength. If doubtful of his own power, he hesitates and halts, and if urged against his will, he roars and shows temper.
In clearing an opening through forest land, the power of the African elephant, and the strength ascribed to him by a recent traveller, as displayed in uprooting trees, have never been equalled or approached by anything I have seen of the elephant in Ceylon[1] or heard of them in India.
[Footnote 1: ”Here the trees were large and handsome, but not strong enough to resist the inconceivable strength of the mighty monarch of these forests; almost every tree had half its branches broken short by them and at every hundred yards I came upon entire trees, and these, _the largest in the forest_, uprooted clean out of the ground, and _broken short across their stems_.”--_A Hunter's Life in South Africa_.
By R. GORDON c.u.mMING, vol. ii. p. 305.--
”Spreading out from one another, they smash and destroy all the finest trees in the forest which happen to be in their course.... I have rode through forests where the trees thus broken lay so thick across one another, that it was almost impossible to ride through the district.”--_Ibid_., p. 310.