Part 5
Existence had its drawbacks, however. Elephants were not eaten in Asia, and not hunted for their ivory to any extent, but they were used in war, and the state of no native prince could be complete unless he had an elephant to ride on and several caparisoned animals for show. Owing to these needs and fashions the animals were captured extensively. In many places at present small parties of men, often only two or three, go on foot into the forests as their predecessors did ages ago, each with a small bag of provisions, and a green hide rope capable of being considerably stretched. An elephant’s track is almost as explicit and full of information to them as a passport or descriptive list, and when they have found the right one, it is patiently followed till the beast that made it is discovered. Then in the great majority of cases its fate is fixed. Flight, concealment, resistance, are in vain. In some “inevitable hour” a noose of plaited thongs that cannot be broken is slipped around one of the hind feet, and a turn or two quickly taken about a tree. A high-bred elephant gives up when he finds that the first fierce struggle for freedom is unavailing, but the meerga’s resistance lasts longer. After one leg has been secured it is easy to fetter both, and then the captors camp in front of the animal in order to accustom it to their presence. By degrees they loosen its bonds, feed and pacify it. When anger is over, and its terrors are dissipated, these men lead their captive off to a market at some great fair, and they lie about what they have done and what the elephant did, with a fertility of invention, a height and length and breadth of mendacity which it would be vain to expect to find exceeded in this imperfect state of existence.
The government also often wants elephants, and when this is the case, captures are made in a different manner, and upon a greater scale. What is done is to surround a herd and drive it into an enclosure called a keddah. This is often a very complicated and difficult thing to accomplish. Far away in some wild unsettled region of the Nilgiri or Satpúra hills, the uplands of Mysore, or elsewhere, an English official pitches his tent, surveys the country, and sends out scouts. To him sooner or later comes a person without any clothes to speak of, but with the most exquisite manners, and says that, owing to his Excellency’s good fortune, by which all adverse influences have been happily averted, he begs to represent that a herd of elephants, who were created on purpose to be captured by him, is marked down. Then the commander-in-chief of the catching forces opens a campaign that may last for weeks, or even months. The topography has been carefully studied with reference to occupying positions which will prevent the animals from breaking through a line of posts that are established around them, and between which communication is kept up by flying detachments. Drafts of men from the district and a trained contingent the officer brought with him, are manœuvred so that they can concentrate upon the point selected for their keddah, which is not constructed till towards the close of these movements, since the area surrounded is very extensive and it is not at first known exactly where it must be placed. Its position is fixed within certain limits, however, and their object is to drive the herd in that direction without at first attracting attention to the fact that this is being done, and thereby causing continued alarm. Those who direct proceedings know the character of elephants, and count upon their lack of intelligence to aid them in carrying out the design. Before any apprehension of real danger makes itself felt, they have voluntarily, as it seems to them, moved away from parties who just showed themselves from time to time and then disappeared. They still feed in solitudes apparently uninvaded, still stand about after the manner of their kind, blowing dust through their trunks or squirting water over their bodies. They fan themselves with branches, and sleep in peace.
At length, long after the true state of things would have been fully appreciated by most other species, the herd finds out that it is always moving in a definite direction. Then a dim consciousness of the truth, which day by day becomes more vivid until it arrives at certainty, takes possession of their minds. From that time an exhibition of traits which scarcely correspond with popular views upon the elephant’s intellect is constantly made. If they had anything like the ability attributed to them, the toils by which they are surrounded could be broken with ease. There is no time from their first sight of a human being to the very moment when they are bound to trees, at which they could not escape. It is useless to say they do not know this; that is precisely what the creatures are accused of. If they were such animals as they are said to be, they would know it, and act accordingly. But as soon as the situation is revealed, they become helpless; their resources of every kind are at an end. They stand still in stupid despair, break out in transient and impotent fits of rage, make pitiable demonstrations of attack upon points where they could not be opposed for an instant if the assault was made in earnest, and at length suffer themselves to be driven into an enclosure that would no more hold them against their will than if it had been made of gauze.
An elephant corral or keddah is a stout stockade with a shallow ditch dug around it inside, and slight fences of brush diverging for some distance from its entrance. Incredible as it may seem, single elephants frequently break out of these places, but a herd hardly ever; they have not enterprise, pluck, and presence of mind enough to follow the example when it is set them. Sometimes, as we have seen, elephants may be fierce and determined; desperation has been shown to be among the possibilities of their nature. But whereas an exceptional individual will, from pure ferocity, brave wounds and death, nothing can so move the race as to cause a display of ordinary self-possession. It is quite true that whenever the imprisoned band comes rushing down upon any part of the keddah, they are met with fire-brands, the discharge of unshotted guns, and an infernal clamor; but if that be urged in explanation of their hesitation, it may be replied that if the whole herd had as much resolution as a single lion brought to bay, they would sweep away everything before them as the fallen leaves of their forests are swept away by a gale.
Often among the bewildered and panic-stricken crowd within a corral some animal is so dangerous that it has to be shot; the majority, however, soon grow calmer, and then comes the task of securing those which it is desirable to keep. When these are males, the procedure is as follows: 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; but that circumstance, which might undoubtedly be supposed to attract the captive’s attention, is entirely overlooked, and when, either by herself or with the assistance of another Delilah, she has backed her Samson up against a tree, two or three other men who have been riding on her back, but whom he has not noticed, slip down and make him fast. As has been said, after a few fits of hysterics, his resistance is at an end; the monarch of the forest is tamed, and considering what has been written about elephants, it is indeed surprising that no one has reported the precise course of thought that produced his resignation. To express this change in the felicitous language of Professor Romanes, the elephant has experienced “a transformation of emotional psychology.” That is to say, a being which has heretofore been nothing but an unreclaimed wild beast, is by the simple process of being frightened, deceived, abused, and enslaved, at once converted into one of the chief ornaments of animated nature!
The question arises as one ponders upon statements like this, whether we really know anything worth speaking of about inferior animals, and if it is possible to use expressions like “cruel as a tiger,” “brave as a lion,” or “sagacious as an elephant,” rationally. As for any philosophical, or, as Spencer calls it, “completely unified knowledge” on the subject, nobody possesses it; at the same time the natural sciences may be so applied as to bring certain truths to light in this connection. It is plain, for example, that an elephant does not kill his keeper because he is fond of him; but it is one thing to start out with the assumption that this noble-hearted, affectionate, and magnanimous animal would never have been guilty of such an act unless it had been maltreated, and it is another, and quite a different course to begin with the fact that the deed was done by a brute in whose inherited nature no radical change could by any possibility have been effected by such training as it has received. If now we endeavor to ascertain what that nature was,--study the records of behavior in wild and domesticated specimens, and look at this by the light which biology and psychology, without any assumptions whatever, cast upon it,--we shall find ourselves in the best position for investigating any particular case under consideration. Many accounts of such murders have been given at length. We know how, why, when, and where the animal began its enmity, and the manner in which it was shown or concealed, so that, having investigated the matter in the way described, we are, to a certain extent, able, not to generalize the character of this species, but to put aside immature opinions, and say that since very many elephants exhibit traits which are in conformity with those to be expected of them, these probably belong to the species at large, and may be displayed with different degrees of violence whenever circumstances favor their manifestation.
The chief characteristics of elephants have been discussed, and an attempt has been made to place them in their true light. The writer has not found the half-human elephant in nature, nor does it appear from records that any one else has done so. An elephant is a wild beast, comparatively with others undeveloped by a severe struggle for existence; superficially changed in captivity, and cut off from improvement by barrenness. It is capable of receiving a considerable amount of instruction, and learns quickly and well; but how far its acquisitions are assimilated and converted into faculty, is altogether uncertain. In the savage state elephants do nothing that other animals cannot do as well, and many of them better. Mere bulk, and its accompaniment, strength, do not influence character in any definite manner that can be pointed out.
In captivity, elephants are commonly obedient, partly because, having never had any enemies to contend with, they are naturally inoffensive, and partly for the reason that these animals are easily overawed, very nervous, and extremely liable to feelings of causeless apprehension.
Courage in cold blood is certainly not one of their qualities; nevertheless, being amenable to discipline, and having some sense of responsibility, certain elephants are undoubtedly stanch both in war and the chase.
This animal is easily excited, very irritable, prone to take offence, and subject to fits of hysterical passion. Thus it happens that wild elephants are the most formidable objects of pursuit known to exist, and that the majority of those held in durance exhibit dangerous outbreaks of temper. When an elephant is vicious, he displays capabilities in the way of evil such as none of his kind, when left to themselves, have ever been known to manifest in the direction of virtue. A “rogue” is the most terrible of wild beasts; the captive tusker who has determined upon murder finds no being but man, who in the prosecution of his design is so patient, so self-contained, so deceitful, and so deadly. It is idle to say, speaking of the relations between elephants and men, that the good qualities of the former greatly predominate, since if it had been otherwise, no association between them would have been possible--they could not have inhabited the same regions.
The concluding pages may, perhaps, serve to show how far this sketch of the elephant’s character is compatible with facts.
Charles John Andersson (“The Lion and the Elephant”) observes that, “whether or not the elephant be the harmless creature he is represented by many, certain it is that to the sportsman he is the most formidable of all those beasts, the lion not excepted, that roam the African wilds; and few there are who make the pursuit of him a profession, that do not, sooner or later, come to grief of some kind.” Being social animals, there is a certain sympathy and affection between members of the same family; but while striking instances of this are recorded, the bulk of evidence tends the other way.
Impressive examples of solicitude have, however, been observed. Moodie tells that he saw a female--whom the experience of most hunters shows to be much more likely to act in this manner than a male--guard her wounded mate, and how she, “regardless of her own danger, quitted her shelter in the woods, rushed out to his assistance, walked round and round him, chased away the assailants, and returning to his side caressed him. Whenever he attempted to walk, she placed her flank or her shoulder to his wounded side and supported him.” Frederick Green wrote an altogether unique account to Andersson of the succor of an elephant that had been shot, by one who was a stranger, of the same sex, and who encountered him far from the scene where his misfortune had befallen him.
The Bushmen, he says, often asserted that elephants would carry water in their trunks to a wounded companion at a long distance in the “Weldt.” Green, however, did not believe it, until, while hunting in the Lake Regions, he was compelled, from want of ammunition, “to leave an elephant that was crippled (one of his fore legs had been broken, besides having eleven wounds in his body) some thirty miles from the waggons.”
“As I felt confident,” this writer continues, “that he would die of his wounds ... I despatched Bushmen after him instead of going myself; but they, not attending to my commands, remained for two days beside an elephant previously killed by my after-rider. It was, therefore, not until the fourth evening after I left this elephant that the Bushmen came up with him.... They found him still alive and standing, but unable to walk.... They slept near him, thinking he might die during the night; but at an early hour after dark they heard another elephant at a distance, apparently calling, and he was answered by the wounded one. The calls and answers continued until the stranger came up, and they saw him giving the hurt one water, after which he assisted in taking his maimed companion away.” Such was the story told Green when the party came back. He disbelieved their statements entirely, went off to the spot to see what had happened for himself, and thus relates his own observations:--
“The next afternoon found me at the identical place where I had left the wounded elephant. I can only say that the account of the Bushmen as to the stranger elephant coming up to the maimed one was proved by the spoor; and that their further assertion as to his having assisted his unfortunate friend in removing elsewhere was also fully verified from the spoor of the two being close alongside of each other--the broken leg of the wounded one leaving after it a deep furrow in the sand. As I was satisfied that these parts of their story were correct, I did not see any further reason to doubt the other.”
Male elephants rarely fall in the holes which undermine so many parts of Africa; they carry their trunks low, have no one to look out for but themselves, and so detect these traps, and generally uncover them. Moodie makes the statement that many elephants follow the recent trails of those who went before them to watering-places, and if these turned off, took it for a sign of danger, and did not drink. After what Inglis and Hallet say to the same effect of tigers, after St. John’s observations upon red deer, and Lloyd’s on the Scandinavian fox, inductive reasoning like this does not seem at all incredible. Amral, chief of the Namaqua Hottentots, told Galton and Andersson that on one occasion he and others were in pursuit of a herd of elephants, and at length came to a wagon-track which the animals had crossed. Here the latter, as was seen by their spoor, had come to a halt, and after carefully examining the ground with their trunks, formed a circle in the centre of which their leader took up his position. Afterwards individuals were sent out to make further investigations. The _Raad_, or debate, this chieftain went on to say, must have been long and weighty, for they (the elephants) had written much on the ground with their probosces. The decision evidently was that to remain longer in that locality would be dangerous, and they therefore came to the unanimous resolution to decamp forthwith. Attempts to overtake them, Amral went on to say, were useless; for, though they followed their tracks till sunset, they saw no more of them.
What these elephants thought when they found a track which, to them, was new and inexplicable, is, of course, a matter of conjecture; but their trail revealed everything that was done on this occasion, as clearly as if the Hottentots had been eye-witnesses of their actions.
Colonel Julius Barras (“India and Tiger-Hunting”) entered _con amore_ into a study of the elephant, so far as its character came into play when the animal was employed in sport; and he did what no other gentleman, to the author’s knowledge, has ever done; namely, turned mahout himself, and drove shikar tuskers against many a tiger. His appreciation of this creature’s courage, benevolence, and reliability is very much in accord with that which has been expressed; but he offers some observations upon vice that should not be overlooked. “One peculiarity of elephants,” remarks the Colonel, “is that, when desirous of killing any one, they nearly always select as a victim their own or a rival’s attendant.” It seems rather strained, however, to speak of this fact as a “peculiarity,” since circumstances would naturally bring about such a selection.
But no provocation need be offered to an elephant in order that he should desire to kill a man. “Sahib,” said Mohammed Yakoob, the driver of an immense old tusker, whom Colonel Barras had drawn from the government stables at Baroda, “you see that this elephant is a beast void of religion (_be imān_), and he hates the English.”
“Dear me,” answered the Colonel, “and how does he get on with the natives?”
“Oh!” replied the mahout, “much better, but still he is uncertain even with them. He has killed two, and there is but little doubt that he will do for me, his keeper, sooner or later.”
Colonel Barras knew that Futteh Ali, the elephant in question, had never seen him before, and was well aware that it was impossible for this creature to feel offended at any act of his. The colonel’s mind was also full of conventional ideas concerning elephants, so he disbelieved what the driver told him, and resolved to make friends with Futteh Ali, and ride him after tigers. He tells what happened in the following words:--
“One afternoon I considered myself fortunate in arriving before Futteh Ali when no one was in sight. I drew up in front of him with a few pieces of chopped sugar-cane in my hand. I looked attentively at the colossus, and could observe no signs of any unusual emotion. I spoke to him in those tones which I flattered myself he considered dulcet. On this he gently waved his ears and twinkled his eyes, as who should say, ‘It’s all right; you are my friend.’ I now called out cheerfully, ‘Salaam, Futteh Ali, Salaam!’ and raised my arm at the same time. To this he responded by lifting his trunk over his head in return for the salute. This last act made assurance doubly sure. I mounted the platform, and as I did so the elephant again flung up his trunk, and opened his mouth, as if to accept with gratitude my sweet and juicy offerings. But his heart was full of treachery. He well knew that with his front feet manacled it would be useless to pursue me even if I had but a few inches start of him. He therefore dissembled with great cleverness and self-command till I had actually leant up against one of his tusks, and had got my hand in his mouth; then he suddenly belched forth a shout of rage, and made a sweep at me with his tusks that sent me flying off the platform into the dust below.... I sat up bareheaded and half-stunned, just in time to see the under-keeper, who had been slumbering behind a pile of equipments all this time, sent with greater force in a backward direction.... The elephant, meanwhile, had thrown off the mask; it was evidently only the shackles on his front feet that prevented him from getting off the platform and finishing us.”
Very few persons would have done the same, but Colonel Barras took Futteh Ali for his Shikar elephant, and he afterwards carried him well in many a dangerous strait. But he was wise enough never to give him a second opportunity to take his life.
Another tusker enraged himself against Colonel Barras for a very slight cause. He was coming back one day, riding this animal, Ashmut Gūj by name, when, as he says, “I determined to see what this beast would do, if I, seated on his back, were to imitate a tiger charging.” Accordingly, he began to mimic that short, hoarse, savage cry, and the elephant, who was not at all deceived, did nothing but raise his trunk. The mahout, however, warned him to desist. “Every time you make that noise,” said he, “the elephant points his trunk over his back and takes a long sniff to inform himself as to which of his passengers is trying to vex him.” Barras stopped at once, but the evil had been done.
“On arriving at the bungalow,” the Colonel continues, “I had quite forgotten this little incident. Not so Ashmut Gūj. At the word of command he bent his hind legs and allowed the three natives to slip off his back in succession. I was the last to dismount, and as I touched the ground the elephant rose with a swift motion, and aimed a fearful kick at me with his enormous club-like hind foot. I started forward, so as just to escape the blow, which would, of course, have annihilated me. This elephant would never forgive me for the indignity I had put upon him. Always upon dismounting he would try to rise, so as to repeat his manœuvre, and it was necessary to make him kneel down completely before I got off. Nor would I ever again feed him from my hand, as I believe that if he could have got hold of me he would have trampled me.”
There is a tragic story told by the same author, of an elephant who was “must.” His keeper did not know it, and, in fact, could not be persuaded that such was the case.