The wonderful sagacity, if obedience to the mahouts can be called such, exhibited by the female elephant, is remarkable. They seem to understand just what is required of them,—butting over fractious captives, assisting to tie them, kneeling upon them when they attempt to rise too quickly, holding their trunks when they are directed to the approaching noose, and in every way assisting their drivers, and showing what would generally be considered great intelligence. “The whole scene,” says Sir Emerson Tennent, “exhibits the most marvellous example of the voluntary alliance of animal sagacity and instinct in active co-operations with human intelligence and courage; and nothing else in nature, not even the chase of the whale, can afford so vivid an illustration of the sovereignty of man over the brute creation, even when confronted with force in its most stupendous embodiment.”
The process of training the elephants is not so difficult as is generally supposed. For a few days, or until they eat freely, they are allowed to rest, a tame elephant being tied near to re-assure them; and, where a large number are being educated, wild ones are placed in stalls between half tame ones, until they take their food regularly. In the first lesson, the head stableman, or “Cooroowe vidahm,” takes his place in front of a wild elephant, bearing a long, sharp, iron-pointed stick. Two other men station themselves on each side, assisted by the tame elephants, and hold their crooks toward the wild elephant’s trunk; while others rub his back soothingly, chanting such epithets as, “Ho! my son,” or, “Ho! my father.” This irritates the animal, who immediately strikes out with his trunk, the men receiving it upon their weapons; and, in a very short time, the elephant learns not to strike at a man.
This lesson having been inculcated, number two is begun, which consists in taking it to bathe between two tame elephants. The feet are tied as closely as possible, and the great beast is made to lie down in the water by pressing its backbone with the crooks. This is extremely painful, and is met by furious protests; but finally the animals learn to kneel at the slightest prick of the sharp weapons, and having once succumbed to the power of man, as shown in a number of ways, rapidly become domesticated. Kind treatment does much toward conciliating them; but, like people, each elephant has its own peculiar disposition.
In two months a wild elephant may be led without a tame companion; and in three months they are generally put to work, at first in treading clay in brick-fields, or harnessed to a wagon with a tame companion, and finally in the lumber-yards, where all their intelligence is brought to play.
The Ceylon elephants attain an age equal to that of the Indian animals. Trained elephants have been kept in use one hundred and forty years; and, according to Tennent, one employed by Mr. Cripps was represented by the Cooroowe people to have served the king of Kandy in the same capacity sixty years before. Among the papers left by Col. Robertson, who held a command in Ceylon in 1799, shortly after the capture of the island by the British, there is a memorandum showing that a decoy (female) was then attached to the elephant establishment at Molura, which the records proved to have served under the Dutch during the entire period of their occupation (extending to upwards of one hundred and forty years). It was said to have been found in the stables by the Dutch on the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1650.
CHAPTER XII.
ROGUE ELEPHANTS.
The popular opinion concerning the elephant is, that it is treacherous, quick to avenge an insult, and possesses a specially retentive memory regarding injuries received. This is an exaggeration: when compared to other animals, the elephant excels in its good qualities. Vices are found only in exceptional cases; the average males being, as a rule, safe, and not susceptible to sudden changes of temper; while the females are particularly mild and gentle. Sanderson says, “Among hundreds that I have known, only two have had any tricks. One of these would not allow herself to be ridden by a strange mahout, and the other had a great aversion to any natives but her own two attendants approaching her.”
In the management of these animals, strict discipline always has to be maintained. Mr. P. T. Barnum tells me, that while his herd of twenty or more are treated with the greatest kindness, yet fear is the secret of their obedience. The keeper never relaxes his power over them; and, if not in sight, the steel hook and pointer of their trainer, though, perhaps, concealed, is always at hand, and ready for use. Even the most gentle elephants, particularly the males, are liable in confinement to outbursts of fury; becoming ungovernable, and doing great damage before they can be subdued or killed.
Without warning, an elephant, which for years had been a quiet and docile member of the East Indian commissariat stud, became possessed of a veritable demon, broke loose, and fled trumpeting to the woods. For many weeks, it was a constant terror to the entire country in the vicinity;—rushing into villages, destroying houses; and, before it was killed, thirty-five human beings fell victims to its fury.