Part 4

A field naturalist coming from Africa to India, or any other part of Asia, would be at once struck by the inferior size, darker color, smaller ears, less massive tusks (rudimentary in the female), and other structural differences presented by _Elephas Indicus_. Likewise, with the forest life, browsing habits, and nocturnal ways of this species, “there is little doubt that there is not an elephant ten feet high at the shoulder in India,” says Sanderson. If a stranger took to elephant-hunting, his opinion of their character in that country would probably depend upon the escapes he made from being killed. There is, however, something yet to be said upon the subject of Asiatic rogues that, so far as the author is aware, has escaped the attention of those who have described them. Such creatures as those of Kakánkōta, Balaghat, Jubbulpūr, and the Begapore canal, are extremely exceptional, if what they actually did be alone considered, but there is nothing to show that they were very extraordinary in temper or traits of character. The first seems to have been undoubtedly insane; the others, however, gave no indications of mental alienation. They were simply vicious like great numbers of their kind, and the accidents of life enabled them to show it more conspicuously than is often the case. Whatever may be thought of the influence of descent in these instances, it is certain that a criminal class cannot develop itself among elephants, and that those murderous brutes referred to, do not stand alone.

Colonel Pollok (“Natural History Notes”) gives a report extracted from the records in the Adjutant General’s Office, that brings out several points relating to the character of vicious elephants. The statements made seem to be incredible, but those who have made a study of the subject will recall many examples of desperation, tenacity of life, and ferocity in elephants, that may serve to modify doubt; more especially in connection with the effects of wounds in the head, which is so formed that half of it might be shot away without an animal suffering otherwise than from shock and loss of blood.

To C. SEALY, Magistrate, etc.

Sir:--I have the honor to state that on the 24th instant, at midnight, I received information that two elephants of very uncommon size had made their appearance within a few hundred yards of the cantonment and close to the village, the inhabitants of which were in the greatest alarm. I lost no time in despatching to the place all the public and private elephants we had in pursuit of them, and at daybreak on the 25th, was informed that their very superior size and apparent fierceness had rendered all attempts at their seizure unavailing; and that the most experienced mahout I had was dangerously hurt--the elephant he rode having been struck to the ground by one of the wild ones, which, with its companion, had then adjourned to a large sugar-cane field adjoining the village. I immediately ordered the guns (a section of a light battery) to this place, but wishing in the first place, to try every means for catching the animals, I assembled the inhabitants of the neighborhood, and with the assistance of the resident Rajah caused two deep pits to be prepared at the edge of the cane field in which our elephants and the people contrived, with the utmost dexterity, to retain the wild ones during the day. When these pits were reported ready, we repaired to the spot, and they were cleverly driven into them. But, unfortunately, one of the pits did not prove to be sufficiently deep, and the one who escaped from it, in the presence of many witnesses, assisted his companion out of the other pit with his trunk. Both were, however, with much exertion, brought back into the cane, and as no particular symptoms of vice or fierceness had appeared in the course of the day, I was anxious to make another effort to capture them. The beldars, therefore, were set to work to deepen the old and prepare new pits against daybreak, when I proposed to make the final attempt. About four o’clock yesterday, however, they burst through all my guards, and making for a village about three miles distant, reached it with such rapidity that the horsemen who galloped before them, had not time to apprise the inhabitants of their danger, and I regret to say that one poor man was torn limb from limb, a child trodden to death, and two women hurt. Their destruction now became absolutely necessary, and as they showed no disposition to quit the village where their mischief had been done, we had time to bring up the four-pound pieces of artillery [these events took place in 1809] from which they received several rounds, both ball and abundance of grape. The larger of the two was soon brought to the ground by a round shot in the head; but after remaining there about a quarter of an hour, apparently lifeless, he got up again as vigorous as ever, and the desperation of both at this period exceeds all description. They made repeated charges on the guns, and if it had not been for the uncommon bravery and steadiness of the artillery-men, who more than once turned them off with shots in the head and body when within a very few paces of them, many dreadful casualties must have occurred. We were obliged to desist for want of ammunition, and before a fresh supply could be obtained, the animals quitted the village, and though streaming with blood from a hundred wounds, proceeded with a rapidity I had no idea of towards Hazarebaugh. They were at length brought up by the horsemen and our elephants, within a short distance of a crowded bazaar, and ultimately, after many renewals of most formidable and ferocious attacks on the guns, gave up the contest with their lives.

The western half of those central Indian highlands called locally the Mykal, Máhádeo, and Sátpúra hills, is a famous haunt for elephants. In this wild birthplace of the streams that pour themselves into the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Gulf, these creatures wander in comparative security. The Gónd, Kól, and Sántál aborigines furnish the best trackers extant, except, perhaps, those mysterious Bygá or Bhúmiá, whose knowledge of woodcraft is unequalled. These small, dark, silent men have no sort of respect for an elephant’s mind or character, but they worship it from fear; they adore the animal because they know enough of its disposition to be always apprehensive of its doing more than it generally does.

Most of these great timber districts are under the supervision of officers, and the camps of their parties are widely scattered through large and lonely tracts of woodland. If one of these is come upon by a herd of elephants while its occupants are absent, a striking trait in this creature’s character will almost surely be exhibited. No monkey is more mischievous than one of these big brutes, and when the men return they probably find that nothing which could be displaced, marred, or broken, has escaped their attention. Elephants are also very curious; anything unusual is apt to attract them, and if they do not become alarmed at it, the gravity with which a novel object is examined, and the queer, awkward way in which these beasts manifest interest or amusement, is singular enough. Sometimes their performances under the incitement of curiosity or malicious mischief are decidedly unpleasant. A wild elephant came out of the woods one night and pawed a hole in the side of Sanderson’s tent. Hornaday says he made a little door in the wall at the head of his bed, so that he could bolt at once in case of a visitation like this. People living in such places, and in frail houses, are exposed to another contingency. Elephants are very subject to panics, and as they often arise from causes that should not disturb such a creature at all, no one can tell when a herd may not rush off together, and go screaming through the wood, breaking down everything but the big trees before them.

Sooner or later, a hunting party’s progress will be arrested by the halt of their guide: he crouches down in his tracks and looks intently, as it appears, at nothing. What he sees would be nothing to eyes less practised, but it is an elephant’s spoor. If one were in Africa, the trackers would now smooth off a little spot of ground, make a few incantations, and throw magic dice to find out all about this animal. But here nothing of that kind is done, and yet the guide will follow the trail unerringly, and the hunter may count upon being brought to his game. “When you know,” says Captain A. W. Drayson, “that the giant of the forest is not inferior in the senses of hearing and smell to any creature in creation, and has besides intelligence enough to know that you are his enemy, and also for what purpose you have come, it becomes a matter of great moment how, when, and where you approach him.”

Elephants, unless they have some definite end in view, stroll about in the most desultory, and, if one is following them, the most exasperating manner. Their big round footprints go up hill and down dale in utterly aimless and devious meanderings. Here the brute stops to dig a tuber or break a branch, there for the purpose of tearing down a clump of bamboos, in another place with no object in view except to drive its tusks into a bank. Sportsmen often spend a day and night upon their trail.

No one can foresee the issue of a contest with an elephant. It may fall to a single shot, but no matter how brave and cool and well instructed the hunter may be, how stanch are his gun-bearers, how perfect his weapons and the skill with which they are used, when that wavering trunk becomes fixed in his direction, and the huge head turns toward him, his breath is in his nostrils. More than likely the animal, whose form is almost invisible in the half-lights of these forests, is aware of his pursuer’s presence before the latter sees him, and if he has remained, it is because he means mischief. Then it may well happen with the sportsman as it did with Arlett, Wedderburn, Krieger, McLane, Wahlberg, and many another.

It stands to reason that a herd is harder to approach without being discovered than a single elephant would be. The chances that the hunter will be seen are greater, and their scattered positions make it more probable that some of them will get his wind.

Occasionally an old bull who despises that part of mankind who do not possess improved rifles, and knows perfectly well the difference between an Englishman and a native, will take possession of some unfortunate ryot’s millet field or cane patch, and hold it by right of conquest against all attempts to dislodge him. Crowds revile the animal from a safe distance, and a village shikári comes with a small-bored matchlock and shoots pieces of old iron and pebbles at him from the nearest position where it is mathematically certain that he will be secure. As for the marauder, he stays where he is until everything is eaten or destroyed, or until he gets tired.

The amount actually consumed by elephants forms but a small portion of the loss which agriculturists sustain from their forays. They always trample down and ruin far more than they eat. Both in India and Ceylon, various districts suffered so severely in this way that government gave rewards for all elephants killed. This has now been discontinued in both countries, but in many places where the herds are protected their numbers are increasing, so that the same necessity for thinning them out will again arise.

All over the cultivated portions of India platforms are erected in fields, where children by day, and men at night, endeavor to frighten away these invaders, together with the birds, antelopes, bears, monkeys, and wild hogs, that ravage their crops. No very signal success can be said to attend these efforts, and when a herd of elephants makes its appearance, they simply keep at a distance from the stages, and otherwise do as they please.

Plundering bands survey the ground, study localities, go on their _duroras_ like a troop of Dacoits, and are organized for the time being in a rude way, under the influence of what Professor Romanes calls “the collective instinct.”

Hunters favorably situated can easily see this. A far-off trumpet now and then announces the herd’s advance through the forest, but as they approach the point where possible danger is to be apprehended, no token of their presence is given, and its first indication is the appearance of a scout,--not a straggler who has got in front by accident, but an animal upon whom the others depend, and who is there to see that all is safe. Everything about the creature, its actions and attitudes, the way it steps, listens, and searches the air with slowly moving trunk, speaks for itself of wariness, knowledge of what might occur, and an appreciation of the position it occupies; no doubt, to a certain extent, of a sense of responsibility. When this scout feels satisfied that no danger is impending, it moves on, at the same time assuring those who yet remain hidden that they may follow, by one of the many significant sounds that elephants make.

A number of narratives describe events as they are likely then to occur, but they are merely hunting stories, and so far as the writer’s memory serves, do not bring out the animal’s traits in any special way. It would appear, however, that the behavior of elephants who unexpectedly meet with Europeans in those places where all the resistance previously experienced came from farmers themselves, is very different from what it is in the former case. Then they are said to be difficult to get rid of, and when driven away from one point by shouts, horns, drums, and the firing of guns, they rush away to another part of the plantations, and continue their depredations. No such passive resistance as this is attempted when English sportsmen are upon the spot. Elephants discover their presence immediately. Upon the first explosion of a heavy rifle, the alarm is sounded from different parts of the field, and the herd betakes itself to flight without any notion of halting by the way. Their dominant idea is to get clear of those premises as soon as possible.

“The elephant,” says Andersson, “has a very expressive organ of voice. The sounds which he utters have been distinguished by his Asiatic keepers into three kinds. The first is very shrill, and is produced by blowing through his trunk. This is indicative of pleasure. The second, made by the mouth, is a low note expressive of want; and the third, proceeding from the throat, is a terrific roar of anger or revenge.” Sanderson seems to think that these discriminations are somewhat fanciful. He remarks that “elephants make use of a great variety of sounds in communicating with one another, and in expressing their wants and feelings.” But he adds that, while “some are made by the trunk and some by the throat, the conjunctures in which either means of expression is employed, cannot be strictly classified, as pleasure, fear, want, and other emotions are indicated by either.” Leveson, on the contrary, gives a list of these intonations, and describes the manner in which they are produced. So also does Tennant; and Baker adds another sound to those before given; “a growl,” this writer calls it, and he says that “it is exactly like the rumbling of distant thunder.”

Undoubtedly these animals express their thoughts and feelings intelligibly by the voice, as also through facial expressions, and by means of such gestures as they are capable of making. It has been before said that although the elephant’s face is half covered up, and there are no muscles either in his case or in that of any other animal, whose primary function is to express mental or emotional states, his physiognomy may be in the highest degree significant.

“The courage of elephants,” writes Captain Drayson, “seems to fluctuate in a greater degree than that of man. Sometimes a herd is unapproachable from savageness; sometimes the animals are the greatest curs in creation.” What is called boldness varies considerably in different species, among members of the same species, and in the same individuals at different times. It is a quality, that, like all others, is double-sided, certain elements belonging to the mind, and the residue to the body. Elephants are nervous; that is to say, their nerve centres--the ganglia in which energy is stored up--are constitutionally in a state of more or less unstable equilibrium, so that stimulus, whether of external origin, or initiated centrically, is apt to produce explosive effects. Courage depends upon physical and mental constitution, upon specializations in race, training, and structure, upon differences in personal experience and organization.

So much as this may be said with confidence, but on what grounds, biological or psychological, is it possible for Professor Romanes to assert that the elephant seems usually to be “actuated by the most magnanimous of feelings”? Magnanimity belongs to the rarest and loftiest type of human character: how did an elephant come by it? The obligations of mental and moral congruity are not less binding than those of physical fitness. No one nowadays draws an elephant with a human head; but a beast with self-respect, courage, refinement, sympathy, and charity enough to be magnanimous, does not seem to outrage any sense of propriety. Works like those of Watson (“Reasoning Power of Animals”), Broderip (“Zoölogical Recreations”), Bingley (“Animal Biography”), Swainson (“Habits and Instincts of Animals”), too often interpret facts so that they will fit preconceived opinions. There is a story, for example, by Captain Shipp, of how, during the siege of Bhurtpore, an elephant pushed another one into a well because he had appropriated his bucket. Tales like this resemble pictures in which the design and execution are both weak, and which depend for their effect upon accessories illegitimately introduced into the composition. Probably a large part of the present inhabitants of the earth have seen animals who, while contending for some possession, acted in a similar manner; but they were not elephants, nor were the circumstances of a well and a siege at hand to set them off, and produce an impression that the actual incident does not justify. The grief of captive elephants over their situation is a subject upon which many fine remarks have been made. Colonel Yule (“Embassy to Ava”) states that numbers die from this cause alone; but _yaarba’hd_, either in its dropsical or atrophic form, is what chiefly proves fatal to them, and this is brought on by the sudden and violent interruption of their natural way of life. According to Strachan, Sanderson, and other experts, the disorder is due to an overthrow of functional balance; something which is sure to induce disease whenever it occurs. Sterility, temporary failure of milk in females with calves, together with the various effects already mentioned, may be referred to the same cause. It is not said that elephants never die of grief; still less, that this is impossible. Any animal highly organized enough to feel intense and persistent sorrow may perish. Pain, either physical or mental, is intimately connected with waste of tissue and paralysis of reparative action. Bain’s formula that “states of pleasure are concomitant with an increase, and states of pain with a decrease, of some, or all, of the vital functions,” is not strictly correct as it stands; still the truth it is intended to convey remains indisputable. Grant-Allen (“Physiological Æsthetics”) defines pleasure as a “concomitant of the healthy action of any or all of the organs or members supplied with afferent cerebro-spinal nerves, to an extent not exceeding the ordinary powers of reparation possessed by the system.” Grief, when intense, reverses this, makes normal function impossible, palsies the viscera, and impairs or perverts those nutritive processes upon which life directly depends. But the profound and abiding sorrow this race cherishes in servitude is a romance. There is nothing to show the regret and longing which have been imagined. Elephants struggle for a while against coercion, and then forget. They fail to take advantage of opportunities for escape, and when they do, the fugitives are recaptured more easily than they were taken in the first place. Instances have often occurred of their voluntary return after a long absence. In the beginning, it is the finest animals who perish. They kill themselves in their struggles, or die of disease. Subsequently, it is said that domestication lengthens average life. This must, however, be one of those blank assertions made so commonly about wild beasts; since, independently of any other objection, it is evident that the statement, in order to be worth anything, should rest upon the basis of a wide comparison between the relative longevities of free and captive animals, and vital statistics of this kind, not only have not been tabulated, but it is impossible that they should have been collected.

Colonel Pollok remarks that “at all times, this is a wandering race, and consumes so much, and wastes so much, that no single forest could long support a large number of such occupants.” Livingstone, Forsyth, and others have, however, noted the fact that little or no permanent injury to extensive woodlands was wrought by these animals. They do not overturn trees, as is popularly believed, and still less do they uproot them. Elephants bend down stems by pressure with their foreheads, and they go loitering about breaking branches, till the place looks as if a whirlwind had passed over it, but these devastations are of a kind soon repaired. In the forests of India they have never met with such adversaries, or been exposed to the same dangers, as the species encountered on the “Dark Continent.” Some Indian tribes worshipped, and all feared them. They passed their lives for the most part in peace, finding food plentiful, ruining much, and finishing nothing. Pitfalls were few and far between; no weighted darts fell upon them as they passed beneath the boughs, no pigmy savage stole behind as they leaned against a tree boll and woke the echoes of the wood with deep, slow-drawn, and far-resounding snores, to thrust a broad-bladed spear into their bodies, and leave it there to lacerate and kill his victim slowly. Neither were herds driven over precipices, nor into chasms, nor did hordes of capering barbarians come against them with assagais, and scream, while pricking them to death,--

“Oh Chief! Chief! we have come to kill you, Oh Chief! Chief! many more shall die. The gods have said it.”

All this was common throughout Africa, while in Asia the natives seldom aggressed against elephants except in the way of capturing them. It is true that this was done awkwardly, and often caused injury or death; but that was unintentional, and as a rule they roamed unmolested among the solitudes of nature.