Toung Taloung is a finely formed elephant, about eight feet in height, with perfect and finely developed tusks three feet in length. Its nails are ivory-lined, and its general color a light gray, which presents some contrast to ordinary elephants. Upon the head, trunk, and ears are several pink blotches, white by courtesy, or, rather, because King Theebaw chose to consider them so.
Toung Taloung has a mild and peaceful disposition, and does not object in the slightest to being fed upon delicacies, and waited upon by native attendants. He is now about sixteen years old.
A second so-called white elephant, the “Light of Asia,” was imported into this country by Adam Forepaugh of Philadelphia soon after the advent of Toung Taloung. It is a male, about seven years old, and a little over five feet in height, its tusks just appearing.
CHAPTER XI.
ELEPHANTS IN CEYLON.[7]
While the elephant of Ceylon does not differ specifically from its cousins of Continental India, there are certain facts of interest about it that would seem to warrant special attention. In 1847, according to Tennent, they were found over nearly the entire island, with the exception of a narrow but densely inhabited belt of cultivated land that extends along the seaboard from Chilaw on the Western coast to Tangalle on the south-east: this is, to some extent, true to-day, their great tracks being found in forests and plains where the surroundings are adapted to their requirements. There has, however, been a noticeable diminution of their numbers in certain localities.
Thus, Le Brun, who visited Ceylon in 1705, says that then they were very abundant in the country about Colombo, and that he had seen one hundred and sixty at a time in a corral. It is also known, that, in olden times, it was necessary in some localities to keep fires burning at night, in order to keep them away from the rice-fields. The opening up of the country, and the clearing off of the mountain forests of Kandy by coffee-planters, has also restricted their range; while sportsmen and others have greatly reduced their numbers.
From the date of the first Punic war, the natives have been aware of their value, and have captured them to send to India for various purposes,—formerly for use in war, and to-day as laborers in the great lumber-yards, and in other positions where great strength is required.
The number of elephants exported from Ceylon between the years 1863 and 1876 was sixteen hundred and fifty-seven, a showing that has no comparison with Africa. The Ceylon elephants are remarkable for the absence of tusks. So marked is this, a Ceylon elephant with these sexual weapons is something of a curiosity, not one in a hundred having them, and then only the males being the fortunate possessors. They are not totally unarmed; as nearly all have stunted tusks, generally about a foot in length, and two inches in diameter. With these they loosen earth, strip the bark from trees, and tear down climbing-plants. That the tusks are in general use, is shown by the fact that nearly all have a groove worn in the extremities.