VIEWS OF ELEPHANTS.
Of the thick-skinned animals the elephant is perhaps the most interesting to be found in Africa. The African elephant is much larger than that of Asia, and is rarely, if ever, found tame in menageries. It may be known by its enormous ears, which are three times as large as those of Asiatic elephants. It is very wild and fierce.
The Arabs hunt the elephant for its tusks. These form a staple export, namely, the ivory of commerce. Doubtless thousands of elephants are killed yearly in Africa to supply the demand for ivory. Hence the supply must needs in time cease, as the animal becomes extinct.
The Arabs are the chief of elephant hunters. They usually hunt them on horseback, though they not unfrequently go on foot. When on foot they follow the tracks of the animal, planning to come upon it at noon, when it is usually asleep or lying in the shade to rest.
When an elephant is found asleep, a hunter creeps up and cuts off its trunk with a cruel stroke of the sword. The poor creature, feeling the blow, struggles to its feet, but is so bewildered and stupefied with pain that the hunter escapes and the sufferer bleeds to death in about an hour.
Should the animal happen to be awake, the hunters creep up behind it and cut the sinews of one of the hind legs just above the heel. This disables it so it cannot stand upon the leg, and hence cannot run. It is but the work of a few minutes to cut the sinews of the other hind leg, when the animal falls to the ground. An artery is then cut, and the unfortunate creature soon bleeds to death.
In a hunt on horseback, the Arabs chase the elephant until they get it so angry that it will turn upon them. It is the work of one hunter then to let the elephant almost overtake him, while he keeps his horse just out of reach of the enraged animal's trunk, with which it tries to seize the steed.
So intent is the elephant upon chasing and capturing this enemy that it does not pay any attention to the other mounted hunters. As soon as one of them can get near enough, he jumps off his horse and cuts the cord of the animal's leg with a powerful blow of his sword, which he wields with both hands.
This done, he jumps upon his horse again. The elephant is now disabled; but, in its frenzy of pain, it struggles to keep its footing upon three legs and retaliates upon its foes. They are too powerful for it, and in a short time the other hind leg is likewise disabled. The animal then falls to the ground, and soon dies from loss of blood. Elephant hunts of this description are exceedingly dangerous. Hunters are not infrequently caught and killed by the infuriated animals.
There are various other ways of capturing the elephants. Among these may be mentioned the native custom of digging pits and covering them with branches of trees and brush concealed under a layer of earth. The elephant is likely to step into one of these pits if pursued, and is soon at the mercy of its captors. Sometimes the natives burn the grass of the steppes, or plains, and thus surround the bewildered animal by fire.
It is not pleasant to think that the poor inoffensive elephant is thus cruelly hunted to its death that man may be the gainer. All sport that tends to cruelty can but make us wish that man would be more humane to dumb creatures.
Arabs esteem the flesh of the elephant as a great delicacy. The meat is fat and juicy, but it has coarse fibers and a rank smell. The trunk and feet are considered the most delicate portions for eating, and they are very good when well cooked.
When the natives wish to cook one of the enormous feet, they first dig a hole, nearly a yard wide, in the ground. This is filled with wood, which is kept burning until the sides of the hole are very hot. The fire is then put out and the food to be roasted laid upon the hot embers. The hole is first covered over with green wood and wet grass. It is then plastered with mud, which is stamped down until hard and compact. In order to keep all the heat in, earth is then piled over this queer oven, and the whole structure, with its contents, is left undisturbed for more than a day and a half. When the mound is opened, the foot is found so well baked that the bottom drops off, like the sole of an old shoe, while there is sufficient tender, juicy meat inside to feed fifty hearty men.
The elephant in its native state is quite a pioneer. The jungle thickets are not infrequently choked by underbrush and interlaced with ropelike, trailing plants. These would make the forests well-nigh impenetrable were it not that the monarch of the elephant herd and his followers break a pathway through these sylvan shades.
They force a way through the thickets and trample down and break off the larger branches that obstruct the way. The lighter and loftier branches yield to the pressure of the huge, massive bodies of the herd, as the creatures pass, but spring back into place again to meet in Gothic arches overhead. The immense animals march along in Indian file, and having once broken a pathway soon tread it down as bare and almost as regular as a gravel path.
Were it not for the service thus rendered by the elephant as a pioneer, many of the dense, thorny forests would soon become choked with underbrush and the interlacing of the branches of trees and various creeping plants. Even with the help thus given in forcing a passage through these forest jungles, progress seems almost impossible, though one be very adroit and willing to exert himself to the utmost limit of endurance.
It is interesting to note the chief differences between the Asiatic and the African elephant. In the latter the head is much more rounded, the tusks much larger, and the ears of enormous size,—so large, in fact, as sometimes to cover the entire shoulders. It is said that the natives use the ears as a sort of truck on which to drag loads.
In the African elephant the molar teeth are marked with large, irregular, oval-shaped ridges upon their thin, flat surfaces. These ridges pass from side to side. In the Asiatic elephant these ridges are like narrow ribbons with indented edges running in parallel lines.
The poet has thus pictured the elephant in its native forest jungles:—
"Wisest of brutes, the half-reasoning elephant,
Trampling his path through wood and brake
And canes, which crackling fall before his way,
And tassel-grass, where silvery feathers play,
O'ertopping the young trees;
On comes the elephant, to slake
His thirst at noon in yon pellucid springs,
Lo! from his trunk upturned, aloft he flings
The grateful shower; and now
Plucking the broad-leaved bough
Of yonder plume, with waving motion slow
Fanning the languid air,
He waves it to and fro."