APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII.
As Ælian's work on the Nature of Animals has never, I believe, been republished in any English version, and the passage in relation to the training and performance of elephants is so pertinent to the present inquiry, I venture to subjoin a translation of the 11th Chapter of his 2nd Book.
"Of the cleverness of the elephant I have spoken elsewhere, and likewise of the manner of hunting. I have mentioned these things, a few out of the many which others have stated; but for the present I purpose to speak of their musical feeling, their tractability, and facility in learning what it is difficult for even a human being to acquire, much less a beast, hitherto so wild:—such as to dance, as is done on the stage; to walk with a measured gait; to listen to the melody of the flute and to perceive the difference of sounds, that, being pitched low lead to a slow movement, or high to a quick one: all this the elephant learns and understands, and is accurate withal, and makes no mistake. Thus has Nature formed him not only the greatest in size, but the most gentle and the most easily taught. Now if I were going to write about the tractability and aptitude to learn amongst those of India, Æthiopia, and Libya, I should probably appear to be concocting a tale and acting the braggart, or to be telling a falsehood respecting the nature of the animal founded on a mere report, all which it behoves a philosopher, and most of all one who is an ardent lover of truth, not to do. But what I have seen myself, and what others have described as having occurred at Rome, this I have chosen to relate, selecting a few facts out of many, to show the particular nature of those creatures. The elephant when tamed is an animal most gentle and most easily led to do whatever he is directed. And by way of showing honour to time, I will first narrate events of the oldest date. Cæsar Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, exhibited once a public show, wherein there were many full-grown elephants, male and female, and some of their breed born in this country. When their limbs were beginning to become firm, a person familiar with such animals instructed them by a strange and surpassing method of teaching; using only gentleness and kindness, and adding to his mild lessons the bait of pleasant and varied food. By this means he led them by degrees to throw off all wildness, and, as it were, to desert to a state of civilisation, conducting themselves in a manner almost human. He taught them neither to be excited on hearing the pipe, nor to be disturbed by the beat of drum, but to be soothed by the sounds of the reed, and to endure unmusical noises and the clatter of feet from persons while marching; and they were trained to feel no fear of a mass of men, nor to be enraged at the infliction of blows, not even when compelled to twist their limbs and to bend them like a stage-dancer, and this too although endowed with strength and might. And there is in this a very noble addition to nature, not to conduct themselves in a disorderly manner and disobediently towards the instructions of man; for after the dancing-master had made them expert, and they had learnt their lessons accurately, they did not belie the labour of his instruction whenever a necessity and opportunity called upon them to exhibit what they had been taught. For the whole troop came forward from this and that side of the theatre, and divided themselves into parties: they advanced walking with a mincing gait and exhibiting in their whole body and persons the manners of a beau, clothed in the flowery dresses of dancers; and on the ballet-master giving a signal with his voice, they fell into line and went round in a circle, and if it were requisite to deploy they did so. They ornamented the floor of the stage by throwing flowers upon it, and this they did in moderation and sparingly, and straightway they beat a measure with their feet and kept time together.
"Now that Damon and Spintharus and Aristoxenus and Xenophilus and Philoxenus and others should know music excellently well, and for their cleverness be ranked amongst the few, is indeed a thing of wonder, but not incredible nor contrary at all to reason. For this reason that a man is a rational animal, and the recipient of mind and intelligence. But that a jointless animal ([Greek: anarthron]) should understand rhythm and melody, and preserve a gesture, and not deviate from a measured movement, and fulfil the requirements of those who laid down instructions, these are gifts of nature, I think, and a peculiarity in every way astounding. Added to these there were things enough to drive the spectator out of his senses; when the strewn rushes and other materials for beds on the ground were placed on the sand of the theatre, and they received stuffed mattrasses such as belonged to rich houses and variegated bed coverings, and goblets were placed there, very expensive, and bowls of gold and silver, and in them a great quantity of water; and tables were placed there of sweet-smelling wood and ivory very superb: and upon them flesh meats and loaves enough to fill the stomachs of animals the most voracious. When the preparations were completed and abundant, the banqueters came forward, six male and an equal number of female elephants; the former had on a male dress, and the latter a female; and on a signal being given they stretched forward their trunks in a subdued manner, and took their food in great moderation, and not one of them appeared to be gluttonous greedy, or to snatch at a greater portion, as did the Persian mentioned by Xenophon. And when it was requisite to drink, a bowl was placed by the side of each; and inhaling with their trunks they took a draught very orderly; and then they scattered the drink about in fun; but not as in insult. Many other acts of a similar kind, both clever and astonishing, have persons described, relating to the peculiarities of these animals, and I saw them writing letters on Roman tablets with their trunks, neither looking awry nor turning aside. The hand, however, of the teacher was placed so as to be a guide in the formation of the letters; and while it was writing the animal kept its eye fixed down in an accomplished and scholarlike manner."
Footnote 2071: [(return)]
ARMANDI, Hist. Milit. des Eléphants, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2. It is an interesting fact, noticed by ARMANDI, that the elephants figured on the coins of Alexander, and the Seleucidæ invariably exhibit the characteristics of the Indian type, whilst those on Roman medals can at once be pronounced African, from the peculiarities of the convex forehead and expansive ears.—Ibid. liv. i. cap. i. p. 3.
ARMANDI has, with infinite industry, collected from original sources a mass of curious informations relative to the employment of elephants in ancient warfare, which he has published under the title of Histoire Militaire des Eléphants depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu' à l'introduction des armes a feu. Paris. 1843.
Footnote 2081: [(return)]
ÆLIAN, lib. ii. cap. ii.
Footnote 2082: [(return)]
See SCHLEGEL'S Essay on the Elephant and the Sphynx. Classical Journal, No. lx. Although the trained elephant nowhere appears upon the monuments of the Egyptians, the animal was not unknown to them, and ivory and elephants are figured on the walls of Thebes and Karnac amongst the spoils of Thothmes III., and the tribute paid to Rameses I. The Island of Elephantine, in the Nile, near Assouan (Syene) is styled in hieroglyphical writing "The Land of the Elephant;" but as it is a mere rock, it probably owes its designation to its form. See Sir GARDNER WILKINSON'S Ancient Egyptians, vol. i. pl. iv.; vol. v. p. 176. Above the first cataract of the Nile are two small islands, each bearing the name of Phylæ;—quære, is the derivation of this word at all connected with the Arabic term fil? See ante, p. 76, note. The elephant figured in the sculptures of Nineveh is universally as wild, not domesticated.
Footnote 2091: [(return)]
This is merely a reiteration of the statement of ÆLIAN, who ascribes to the elephants of Taprobane a vast superiority in size, strength, and intelligence, above, those of continental India,—[Greek: "Kai oide ge næsiotai elephantes ton hæpiroton halkimoteroi te tæn rhomæn kai meixous idein eisi, kai thumosophoteroi de panta pantæ krinointo han.">[—ÆLIAN, De Nat. Anim., lib. xvi. cap. xviii.
ÆLIAN also, in the same chapter, states the fact of the shipment of elephants in large boats from Ceylon to the opposite continent of India, for sale to the king of Kalinga; so that the export from Manaar, described in a former passage, has been going on apparently without interruption since the time of the Romans.
Footnote 2101: [(return)]
The expression of TAVERNIER is to the effect that as compared with all others, the elephants of Ceylon are "plus courageux à la guerre." The rest of the passage is a curiosity:—
"Il faut remarquer ici une chose qu'on aura peut-être de la peine à croire main quit est toutefois très-véritable: c'est que lorsque quelque roi on quelque seigneur a quelqu'un de ces éléphants de Ceylan, et qu'on en amène quelqu'autre des lieux où les marchands vont les prendre, comme d'Achen, de Siam, d'Arakan, de Pegu, du royáume de Boutan, d'Assam, des terres de Cochin et de la coste du Mélinde, dés que les éléphants en voient un de Ceylan, par un instinct de nature, ils lui font la révérence, portant le bout de leur trompe à la terre et la relevant. Il est vrai que les éléphants que les grand seigneurs entretiennent, quand en les amine devant eux, pour voir s'ils sent en bon point, font troi fois une espére de révérence avec leur troupe, a que j'ai en souvent, mais ils sont stylés à cela, et leurs maitres le leur enseignent de bonne heure."—Les Six Voyages de J.B. TAVERNIER, lib. iii. ch. 20.
Footnote 2102: [(return)]
Ramayana, sec. vi.: CAREY and MARSHMAN, i. 105: FAUCHE, t. i. p. 66.
Footnote 2103: [(return)]
The only mention of the elephant in Sacred History in the account given in Maccabees of the invasion of Egypt by Antiochus, who entered it 170 B.C., "with chariots and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy."—1 Macc. i. 17. Frequent allusions to the use of elephants in war occur in both books: and in chap. vi. 34, it is stated that "to provoke the elephants to fight they showed them the blood of grapes and of mulberries." The term showed, "[Greek: edeixan]," might be thought to imply that the animals were enraged by the sight of the wine and its colour, but in the Third Book of Maccabees, in the Greek Septuagint, various other passages show that wine, on such occasions, was administered to the elephants to render them furious.—Mace, v. 2. 10, 45. PHILE mentions the same fact, De Elephante, i. 145.
There is a very curious account of the mode in which the Arab conquerors of Seinde, in the 9th and 10th centuries, equipped the elephant for war; which being written with all the particularity of an eye-witness, bears the impress of truth and accuracy. MASSOUDI, who was born in Bagdad at the close of the 9th century, travelled in India in the year A.D. 913, and visited the Gulf of Cambay, the coast of Malabar, and the Island of Ceylon:—from a larger account of his journeys he compiled a summary under the title of "Moroudj al-dzeheb," or the "Golden Meadows," the MS. of which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. M. REINAUD, in describing this manuscript says on its authority, "The Prince of Mensura, whose dominions lay south of the Indus, maintained eighty elephants trained for war, each of which bore in his trunk a bent cymeter (carthel), with which he was taught to cut and thrust at all confronting him. The trunk itself was effectually protected by a coat of mail, and the rest of the body enveloped in a covering composed jointly of iron and horn. Other elephants were employed in drawing chariots, carrying baggage, and grinding forage, and the performance of all bespoke the utmost intelligence and docility."—REINAUD, Mèmoires sur l'Inde, antérieurement au milieu du XIe siècle, d'après les écrivains arabes, persans et chinois. Paris, M.D.CCC. XLIX. p. 215. See SPRENGER'S English Translation of Massoudi, vol. i. p. 383.
Footnote 2111: [(return)]
BRODERIP, Zoological Recreations, p. 226.
Footnote 2121: [(return)]
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.
Medal of Numidia.
Modern Hendoo.
The Greeks called it [Greek: harpê], and the Romans cuspis.
Footnote 2141: [(return)]
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.
Footnote 2151: [(return)]
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 (génisse), 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 shaggy 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 latitudes. 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.
Footnote 2161: [(return)]
[Greek:
"Diplês de phasin euporêsai kardias
Kai tê men einai thumikon to thêrion
Eis akratê kinêsin êrethismenon,
Tê de prosênes kai thrasytêtos xenon.
Kai pê men autôn akroasthai ton logôn
Ous an tis Indos eu tithaseuôn legoi,
Pê de pros autous tous nomeis epitrechein
Eis tas palaias ektrapen kakoupgias.">[
PHILE, Expos. de Eleph., l. 126, &c.
Footnote 2162: [(return)]
Captain YULE, in his Narrative of an Embassy to Ava in 1855, records an illustration 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.
Footnote 2171: [(return)]
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.
Footnote 2181: [(return)]
"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 CUMMING, 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.
Mr. Gordon Cumming does not name the trees which he saw thus "uprooted" and "broken across," nor has he given any idea of their size and weight; but Major DENHAM, who observed like traces of the elephant in Africa, saw only small trees overthrown by them; and Mr. PRINGLE, who had an opportunity of observing similar practices of the animals in the neutral territory of the Eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, describes their ravages as being confined to the mimosas, "immense numbers of which had been torn out of the ground, and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease on the soft and juicy roots, which form a favourite part of their food. Many of the larger mimosas had resisted all their efforts; and indeed, it is only after heavy rain, when the soil is soft and loose, that they ever successfully attempt this operation."—Pringle's Sketches of South Africa.
Footnote 2201: [(return)]
Menageries, &c., "The Elephant," vol. ii. p. 23.
Footnote 2202: [(return)]
Ibid., ch. vi. p. 138.
Footnote 2211: [(return)]
Menageries, &c., "The Elephant," vol. i. p. 19.
Footnote 2221: [(return)]
The principal sound by which the mahouts in Ceylon direct the motions of the elephants is a repetition, with various modulations, of the words ur-re! ur-re! This is one of those interjections in which the sound is so expressive of the sense that persons in charge of animals of almost every description throughout the world appear to have adopted it with a concurrence that is very curious. The drivers of camels in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage them to speed by shouting ar-ré! ar-ré! The Arabs in Algeria cry eirich! to their mules. The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where mules are still driven with cries of arré (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of "arrieros"). In France the Sportsman excites the hound by shouts of hare! hare! and the waggoner there turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word hurhaut! In the North, "Hurs was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed;" and to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their pigs with shouts of hurrish! a sound closely resembling that used by the mahouts in Ceylon.
Footnote 2231: [(return)]
On the Difference between the Human Membrana Tympani and that of the Elephant. By Sir EVERARD HOME, Bart., Philos. Trans., 1823. Paper by Prof. HARRISON. Proc. Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. p. 386.
Footnote 2232: [(return)]
I have already noticed the striking effect produced on the captive elephants in the corral, by the harmonious notes of an ivory flute; and on looking to the graphic description which is given by ÆLIAN of the exploits which he witnessed as performed by the elephants exhibited at Rome, it is remarkable how very large a share of their training appears to have been ascribed to the employment of music.
PHILE, in the account which he has given of the elephant's fondness for music, would almost seem to have versified the prose narrative of ÆLIAN, as he describes its excitement at the more animated portions, its step being regulated to the time and movements of the harmony: the whole "surprising in a creature whose limbs are without joints!
[Greek: "Kainon ti poiôn ex anarthrôn organôn.">[
PHILE, Expos. de Eleph, 1. 216.
For an account of the training and performances of the elephants at Rome, as narrated by ÆLIAN see the appendix to this chapter.
Footnote 2251: [(return)]
The Angler in the Lake District, p. 23.
Footnote 2252: [(return)]
A shocking account of the death of this poor animal is given in HONE'S Every-Day Book, March, 1830, p. 337.
Footnote 2253: [(return)]
ÆLIAN, lib. xiii. c. 7.
Footnote 2271: [(return)]
The elephant which was dissected by DR. HARRISON of Dublin, in 1847, died of a febrile attack, after four or five days' illness, which, as Dr. H. tells me in a private letter, was "very like scarlatina, at that time a prevailing disease; its skin in some places became almost scarlet."
Footnote 2281: [(return)]
See a paper entitled "Recollections of Ceylon," in Fraser's Magazine for December, 1860.
Footnote 2282: [(return)]
Annales du Muséum F. viii. 1805. p. 94, and Ossemens Fossiles, quoted by OWEN, in the article on "Teeth," in TODD'S Cyclop. of Anatomy, &c., vol. iv. p. 929.
Footnote 2301: [(return)]
An ordinary-sized elephant engrosses the undivided attention of three men. One, as his mahout or superintendent, and two as leaf-cutters, who bring him branches and grass for his daily supplies. An animal of larger growth would probably require a third leaf-cutter. The daily consumption is two cwt. of green food with about half a bushel of grain. When in the vicinity of towns and villages, the attendants have no difficulty in procuring an abundant supply of the branches of the trees to which elephants are partial; and in journeys through the forests and unopened country, the leaf-cutters are sufficiently expert in the knowledge of those particular plants with which the elephant is satisfied. Those that would be likely to disagree with him he unerringly rejects. His favourites are the palms, especially the cluster of rich, unopened leaves, known as the "cabbage," of the coco-nut, and areca; and he delights to tear open the young trunks of the palmyra and jaggery (Caryota urens) in search of the farinaceous matter contained in the spongy pith. Next to these come the varieties of fig-trees. particularly the sacred Bo (F. religiosa) which is found near every temple, and the na gaha (Messua ferrea), with thick dark leaves and a scarlet flower. The leaves of the Jak-tree and bread-fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia, and A. incisa), the Wood apple (Ægle Marmelos), Palu (Mimusops Indica), and a number of others well known to their attendants, are all consumed in turn. The stems of the plaintain, the stalks of the sugar-cane, and the feathery tops of the bamboos, are irresistible luxuries. Pine-apples, water-melons, and fruits of every description, are voraciously devoured, and a coco-nut when found is first rolled under foot to detach it from the husk and fibre, and then raised in his trunk and crushed, almost without an effort, by his ponderous jaws.
The grasses are not found in sufficient quantity to be an item of daily fodder; the Mauritius or the Guinea grass is seized with avidity; lemon grass is rejected from its overpowering perfume, but rice in the straw, and every description of grain, whether growing or dry; gram (Cicer arietinum), Indian Corn, and millet are his natural food. Of such of these as can be found, it is the duty of the leaf-cutters, when in the jungle and on march, to provide a daily supply.
Footnote 2321: [(return)]
ARISTOTELES de Anim. l. viii. c. 9.
Footnote 2322: [(return)]
Menag. de Mus. Nat. p. 107.
Footnote 2331: [(return)]
FLEURENS, De la Longévité Humaine, pp. 82, 89.
Footnote 2341: [(return)]
This remark regarding the elephant of Ceylon does not appear to extend to that of Africa, as I observe that BEAVER, in his African Memoranda, says that "the skeletons of old ones that have died in the woods are frequently found."—African Memoranda relative to an attempt to establish British Settlements at the Island of Bulama. Lond. 1815, p. 353.
Footnote 2351: [(return)]
A corral was organised near Putlam in 1846, by Mr. Morris, the chief officer of the district. It was constructed across one of the paths which the elephants frequent in their frequent marches, and during the course of the proceedings two of the captured elephants died. Their carcases were left of course within the enclosure, which was abandoned as soon as the capture was complete. The wild elephants resumed their path through it, and a few days afterwards the headman reported to Mr. Morris that the bodies had been removed and carried outside the corral to a spot to which nothing but the elephants could have borne them.
Footnote 2352: [(return)]
PHILE, Expositio de Eleph. l. 243.
Footnote 2361: [(return)]
The selection by animals of a place to die, is not confined to the elephant, DARWIN says, that in South America "the guanacos (llamas) appear to have favourite spots for lying down to die; on the banks of the Santa Cruz river, in certain circumscribed spaces which were generally bushy and all near the water, the ground was actually white with their bones; on one such spot I counted between ten and twenty heads."—Nat. Voy. ch. viii. The same has been remarked in the Rio Gallegos; and at St. Jago in the Cape de Verde Islands, DARWIN saw a retired corner similarly covered with the bones of the goat, as if it were "the burial-ground of all the goats in the island."
Footnote 2362: [(return)]
Arabian Nights' Entertainment, LANE'S edition, vol. iii. p. 77.
Footnote 2371: [(return)]
See a disquisition on the origin of the story of Sinbad, by M. REINAUD, in the introduction prefixed to his translation of the Arabian Geography of Aboulfeda, vol. i. p. lxxvi.