In a wild state, the elephant is neither sanguinary nor ferocious; he is of a mild temper, and never makes a bad use of his arms, or his strength; for he never employs or exerts them but in his own defence, or in protecting others of his species. His manners are social, for he is seldom wandering alone: they commonly walk in troops, the oldest leading, and the next in age bringing up the rear; the young and the weak keeping in the middle. The females carry their young, and hold them close with their trunks. They only observe this order in perilous marches when they go to feed on cultivated lands; they travel with less precaution in forests and solitary places, but without separating to such a distance as not to be able to give to each other mutual assistance, and warnings of danger. Some, however, straggle, and remain behind, and it is none but these the hunters dare attack, for a small army would be requisite to assail the whole herd, and they could not conquer without a great loss of men. It is even dangerous to do them the least injury, for they go straight to the offender, and notwithstanding the great heaviness of their bodies they walk so fast that they easily overtake the most agile man; they pierce him through with their tusks, or seize him with their trunks; throw him like a stone, and then kill him by treading him under their feet. But it is only when they have been provoked that they become so furious and so implacable; they do no harm to those who do not disturb them; yet, as they are very suspicious, and sensible of injuries, it is proper to avoid them; and the travellers who frequent the countries where they are numerous, light great fires in the night, and beat drums, to prevent their approach. It is said that when they have been once attacked by men, or have fallen into a snare, they never forget it, but seek for revenge on all occasions. As they have a most exquisite sense of smelling, perhaps more perfect than that of any other animal, they smell a man at a great distance, and can easily follow him by the scent. The ancients have asserted that the elephant tears up the grass where the hunters have passed, and with their trunks convey it to each other, in order to give information of the passage and march of the enemy. These animals are fond of the banks of rivers, deep valleys, shady places, and marshy grounds. They cannot go long without water, which they make thick and muddy before they drink it. They often fill their trunks with water, either to convey it to their mouths, or only to cool their noses, and to amuse themselves in sprinkling it around them. They cannot support cold, and suffer equally from excessive heat; to avoid the burning rays of the sun, they penetrate into the thickest recesses of the forests. They bathe often in the water; the enormous size of their bodies is rather an advantage to them in swimming, and they do not sink so deep in the water as other animals; besides, the length of their trunks, which they erect in the air, and through which they breathe, takes from them all fear of being drowned.
Their common food is roots, herbs, leaves, and young branches; they also eat fruit and corn, but they have a dislike to flesh and fish. When one of them finds a good pasture, he calls the others, and invites them to come and feed with him. As they consume a great quantity of fodder, they often change their place, and when they find cultivated lands they make a prodigious waste; their bodies being of an enormous weight, they destroy ten times more with their feet, than they consume for their food, which may be reckoned at 150lbs. of grass daily; and as they always keep in great numbers together, they will lay waste a large territory in an hour’s time; for this reason the Indians and Negroes exert every means to prevent their visits, and to drive them away; they make great noises, and large fires round their cultivated lands; yet, notwithstanding these precautions, the elephants often take possession of them, drive away the cattle and men, and sometimes pull down their cottages. It is difficult to frighten them, as they are little susceptible of fear; the only things that can stop their progress are fire-works, and crackers thrown amongst them; the sudden and repeated noise of which sometimes occasions them to turn back. It is very difficult to part them, for they commonly act together whether they attack, proceed, or turn back.
When the females come in season this social intercourse yields to a more lively sentiment; the herd separate in pairs, having each chosen their mates; they then seek for solitary places, and in their march love seems to precede and modesty to follow them; for they observe the greatest mystery in their amours, and they have never been seen to couple. They avoid the inspection of their own species, and, perhaps, know better than ourselves the pure delight of secret pleasure, being wholly taken with one beloved object. They retire into shady woods and most solitary places, to give themselves up, without disturbance or restraint, to the impulses of Nature, which are strong and lasting, as they have long intervals between their seasons of love. The female goes two years with young; when she is in that condition the male abstains from her, and thus are they subjected to the influence of love but once in three years. They bring forth only one young, which has teeth at its birth, and is then bigger than a wild boar; his tusks are not visible, but they appear soon after, and when six months old they are some inches long. At that age the elephant is bigger than the ox, and the tusks continue to increase till he is much advanced in years, provided the animal is in health, and at liberty, for it is scarcely to be imagined how much slavery and unnatural food change his natural habit and constitution.
The elephant is easily tamed, brought into submission, and instructed, and as he is the strongest and most sensible of animals, he is more serviceable than any of them; but he seems always to feel his servile condition, for though subject to the powerful impressions of love they never couple, nor produce in a state of domesticity. His passion, irritated by constraint, degenerates into fury; as he cannot indulge it without witnesses he becomes violent and intractable, and the strongest chains and fetters are often found necessary to stop his impetuosity, and subdue his anger. Thus the elephant differs from all domestic animals which man treats or manages as beings without will; he is not like these born slaves, which we mutilate or multiply for our use. Here the individual alone is a slave, the species remains independent, and constantly refuses to increase for the benefit of their tyrants. This alone shews in the elephant elevated sentiments superior to the nature of common brutes. To be agitated by the most ardent desires, and to deny themselves the satisfaction of enjoying them; to be subjected to all the fury of love, and yet not to violate the laws of modesty, are, perhaps, the highest efforts of human virtue, but which in these majestic animals are all suggested by instinct, and from which they never deviate. Enraged that they cannot be gratified without witnesses their fury becomes stronger than their passion of love, destroys the effects of it, and provokes, at the same time, that anger which, in those instants, renders the elephant more dangerous than any other wild animal.
We should be inclined to doubt this fact, were it possible, but naturalists, historians, and travellers, all agree, that the elephants never produce in a domestic state. The kings of India keep a great number of them, and after having endeavoured in vain to make them multiply, like other domestic animals, they found it necessary to part the males from the females, to prevent that fury which is occasioned by the irritation of desires they will not satisfy in a state of subjection. There are, therefore, no domestic elephants but what have been wild, and the manner of taking, taming, and bringing them into submission deserves particular attention. In the middle of forests, and in the vicinity of the places frequented by the elephants, a spot is chosen, and encircled with palisadoes; the strongest trees of the forest serve for stakes, to which are fastened cross pieces of timber, which support the other stakes. A man may easily pass through this palisado; a large opening is also left, through which the elephant may go in, and over it is a trap, or large stake, which is let down to shut the opening after the animal has entered. To bring him to this inclosure the hunters take a tame female with them into the forest, who is in season, and when when they think she is near enough to be heard they oblige her to make the cry of love, the wild male answers immediately, and begins his march to meet her. She is then led towards the inclosure, repeating her call now and then; she arrives first, and the male following her track enters through the same gate. As soon as he perceives himself enclosed his ardour vanishes, and when he discovers the hunters he becomes furious; they throw ropes at him with a running knot, by which they fetter his legs and trunk; they then bring two or three tame elephants, led by dextrous men, and endeavour to tie him to one of them; in short, by dint of dexterity, strength, terror, and caresses, they succeed in taming him in a few days.
I shall not enter into more particulars on this subject, but refer to those travellers who have been ocular witnesses of the manner of hunting the elephants;[AF] it varies according to different countries, and according to the power and the abilities of those who make war against them, for instead of erecting, like the kings of Siam, walls, terraces, or making palisades around large inclosures, the poor negroes use the most simple snares; they dig pits in the passages, where the elephants are known to pass, so deep as to prevent their getting out again when fallen in.
[AF] For the purpose of hunting the elephant, they have at a little distance from Luovo, a kind of amphitheatre, surrounded with high walls, where those are placed who wish to see the sport. In the middle of these walls a palisade is formed, with strong stakes fixed in the ground; a pretty large opening is left on the side next the forest, and a smaller one towards the city, into which the elephant cannot enter without difficulty. Upon the day fixed upon for the chace, the hunters go into the forests upon some female elephants covering themselves with leaves to prevent being seen; having reason to suppose there are wild ones near, they make the females utter certain cries, and which the wild males instantly answer; the hunter then drives the female back to the above amphitheatre, whither the male constantly follows her, and being entered the large opening is immediately shut. At the one we were present, the females went out on the other side, but from the smallness of the size the wild one refused to enter; the females repeated their cries, and some of the Siamese began to irritate him, by clapping their hands, and crying pat, pat, while others struck him with long poles that had sharp points, all of whom he pursued, but they escaped by slipping between the palisades, sufficient spaces being left for that purpose; at length he fixed upon one whom he pursued with great fury, and the man running into this narrow passage the elephant followed him, but the moment he entered, the bars, before and behind, were let fall, and he no sooner found himself in the snare than he made the most violent efforts, and raised the most hideous cries. The hunters then endeavoured to sooth him by flinging quantities of water upon his body and trunk, rubbing him with leaves, putting oil on his ears, and bringing tame elephants, who seemed to caress him with their trunks, one of which, properly trained, was mounted by a man who made him go backwards and forwards to shew as it were the stranger that he had nothing to fear. Ropes were thrown round his hind legs and body, and then the bar was taken away from the further end, where being come he was tied to two tame elephants one of each side of him these led him the way while another pushed him behind with his head until they came to a kind of shade where he was fastened to a large post, like the capstan of a ship, and there left till the next day. While here, one of the Bramins, or priests, dressed in white, and mounted on another elephant, goes to him and sprinkles him with consecrated water, which they imagine has the power of divesting him of his ferocity. Next day he is marched off with the other elephants, and by the end of the fifteenth, they are in general perfectly tame. Premier Voyage du P. Tachard.
In Ethiopia they take great numbers of these animals by forming an inclosure in the thickest parts of the forests, leaving a sufficient opening, with a door lying flat on the ground; the hunters sit to watch for the elephant on a tree and as soon as he enters they draw up the door with a rope, then descend and attack him with arrows, but if by any chance he gets out of his confinement, he kills every man that he can come near. L’Afrique de Marmol.
At Ceylon they take the elephant by digging deep ditches lightly covering them over, in places frequented by these animals, who coming on this covering in the night, unavoidably fall in and are unable to get out again; here the slaves supply them with food, to whom they, in a short time, are so accustomed, and familiar, as to be led up to Goa perfectly tame. They have also a mode of hunting them with two tame females, whom they take into the forests, and coming near a wild elephant, they let them loose; these go up to the strange one on each side, press so closely against him as to force him their way, and render it impossible for him to escape. Memoir es touchant les Indes Orientales. Voyages de P. Philippe, Thevenot, &c.