The elephant, when once tamed, becomes the most tractable and submissive of all animals; he conceives an affection for his leader, caresses him, and seems to foresee whatever can please him; in a little time he understands signs, and even the expression of sounds; he distinguishes the tones of command, anger, or approbation, and acts accordingly. He never mistakes the voice of his master; he receives his orders with attention, executes them with prudence and eagerness, but without precipitation, for his motions are always measured, and his character seems to participate of the gravity of his body. He is easily taught to bend his knees to assist those who ride on his back; he caresses his friends, salutes the persons he is directed to take notice of, lifts up burdens, and helps to load himself with his trunk; he has no aversion to being clothed, and seems to delight in a golden harness or magnificent trappings; he is easily put into traces, and often employed in drawing; he draws evenly, without slopping or any marks of dislike, provided he is not insulted by unseasonable correction, and that his driver seems to approve the spontaneous exertion of his strength. His conductor is mounted on his neck, and makes use of an iron rod, hooked at the end, with which he strikes him on the head, or sides, to make him turn, or increase his pace; but a word is commonly sufficient, especially, if the animal has bad time to make himself well acquainted with his conductor, and has a confidence in him. His attachment is sometimes so strong, and so lasting, and his affection so great, that he will refuse to serve a second person, and has been known to die of grief when in a fit of rage he has happened to destroy his keeper.
The species of the elephant is numerous, though they bring forth but one in two or three years. In proportion to the shortness of the life of an animal is its multiplicity of production; and in the elephant the duration of its existence compensates for the smallness of its number; and if it be true that they live 200 years, and propagate until they are 120, each couple may bring forth forty in that time. Besides, having nothing to fear from other animals, and being taken by men with great difficulty and danger, the species has not decreased, and is generally dispersed in all the southern parts of Africa and Asia. They are numerous at Ceylon, in the Mogul dominions, in Bengal, Siam, Pegu, and the other territories of India. They are perhaps, in a greater number in the South of Africa, except some parts which they have abandoned, since they have been so fully inhabited by men. They are faithful to their country, and constant to their climate, for though they can live in temperate regions it does not seem that they ever attempted to settle, or even to travel into them. They were formerly unknown in Europe. It does not seem that Homer, who speaks of the ivory, knew the animal from whom it is obtained. Alexander was the first who rode upon an elephant in Europe. He sent into Greece those which he took at Porus, and were, perhaps, the same which Pyrrhus employed several years after against the Romans, in the Tarentine war, and with which Curius adorned his triumph into Rome. Hannibal afterwards brought them from Africa, made them pass the Alps, and led them almost to the gates of Rome.
From time immemorial the Indians have made use of elephants in war. Among those nations, unacquainted with military discipline, they formed their best troop, and as long as battles were decided by iron weapons they commonly vanquished. Yet we learn by history that the Greeks and Romans soon used themselves to those monsters of war; they opened their ranks to let them go through; they did not attempt to wound them, but threw all their darts against their leaders, who were obliged to turn all their attention to the elephant, when separated from their troops. Now that fire is become the element of war, and the principal instrument of death, elephants, who are afraid of noise and flame, would be rather an incumbrance in battle, and more dangerous than useful. The kings of India still arm their elephants in war, but it is more for shew than for real service; yet they derive from these animals the same utility that arises from an army which is to enslave their equals; they make use of them to subdue the wild elephants. The most powerful monarchs of the Indies have now above 200 elephants for war. They keep many others for different services, and to carry the large cages in which their women travel; it is a perfectly safe way of travelling, for the elephant never stumbles; but time is required to be used to the motions of his pace. The best place is upon the neck, as you there ride more easy than on the shoulders or the back; but in war, or hunting, several men ride the same elephant: the conductor rides on his neck, and the hunters, or warriors, are placed on other parts of his body.
In those happy regions, where our cannon and our murdering arts are yet scarcely known, they fight still upon elephants. At Cochin, and in the other parts of Malabar, they make no use of horses, and all those who do not fight on foot are mounted upon elephants. In Tonquin, Siam, and Pegu, the king, and all the grandees, ride on nothing but elephants; on festival days they are preceded and followed by a great number of these animals, superbly caparisoned, and covered with the richest stuffs. They surround their tusks with gold and silver rings; they paint their ears and cheeks; they crown them with garlands, and their harness is ornamented with little bells; they seem to delight in magnificent attire, and the more their trappings are rich and splendid the more they are cheerful and caressing. It is only in the East Indies that the elephants are so far improved, for in Africa they can scarcely tame them. The Asiatics, anciently civilized, have reduced the education of the elephant into a system, and they have instructed and modified him according to their manners. But of all the Africans the Carthaginians were the only people who trained up the elephants to war, because at the time of the splendor of their commonwealth they were, perhaps, more civilized than any other of the eastern nations. At present no wild elephants are found in all that part of Africa on this side Mount Atlas; there are even few beyond those mountains, as far as the river Senegal. But they are numerous in Senegal, in Guinea, in Congo, and on the Teeth Coast, in the countries of Anto, Acra, Benin, and all the other southern parts of Africa, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, except some provinces very populous, such as Fida, Ardra, &c. They are also found in Abyssinia, in Ethiopia, in Nigritia, on the eastern coast, and in the inland parts of Africa. They are also in the great islands of India and Africa, such as Madagascar, Java, and the Philippines.
After comparing the relations of travellers and historians it seems that elephants are actually more numerous in Africa than in Asia; they are there also less mistrustful, and not so shy, as if they knew the unskilfulness and the little power of the men who inhabit this part of the world; they come daily without fear to their habitations, and treat the negroes with that natural and scornful indifference they have for other animals; they do not consider those men as powerful and formidable beings, but as a species whose skill consists in laying snares, without having the courage to encounter them, and absolutely ignorant of the art of reducing them into subjection. It is by this art known, from the earliest times, to the eastern nations, that their species is diminished. The wild elephants, which they tame, become by their captivity, like so many voluntary eunuchs, which daily drain the source of generation; but, on the contrary, in Africa, where they are all free, the whole species propagate, and all the individuals constantly concur to its increase. I do not know any other cause for this difference in their numbers, for, in considering the other effects, it seems the south of India, and the east of Africa, are the natural countries, and the most suitable to the elephant. He is there much larger and stronger than in Guinea, or in the other western parts of Africa. He fears excessive heat, and never inhabits the burning sands; he is most frequently found on the flat countries near the rivers, and never on the hilly parts of Africa; but in India the most powerful and the most courageous of the species, and who have the strongest and longest tusks, are the elephants of the mountains; they inhabit the high grounds, where the air being more temperate, the water more pure, and the food more wholesome, they gradually arrive to the full perfection of their nature.
In general the elephants of Asia are larger and superior in strength, to those of Africa; particularly those of Ceylon, which exceed in courage and sagacity even those of Asia. Probably they owe these qualifications to their more improved education; it is, however, certain, that all travellers have celebrated the elephants of this island, where the ground is interspersed with mountains, which rise gradually towards the centre, and where the heat is not so excessive as in Senegal, Guinea, and other western parts of Africa. The ancients, who knew no more of this part of the world, but the countries seated between Mount Atlas and the Mediterranean, had observed, that the elephants of Lybia were much smaller than those of India. There are not any elephants at this time, in that part of Africa, which proves, as mentioned in the article of the Lion, that men are more numerous there now than they were in the ages of Carthage. The elephants have retired in proportion as men have molested them; but in travelling through the climates of Africa, they have not changed their nature; for those of Senegal, Guinea, &c. are at this time smaller than those of India.
The strength of these animals is proportionate to their bigness. The elephants of India carry with ease burdens of three or four thousand pounds weight; the smallest, that is, those of Africa, lift up freely with their trunks, burdens of two hundredweight, and place them on their shoulders; they take into their trunks a great quantity of water, which they throw out around them, at seven or eight feet distance; they can carry a weight of a thousand pounds upon their tusks; with their trunks they break off branches, and with their tusks they root out trees. Their strength may be judged of by their agility, comparatively to the bulk of their bodies; they walk as fast as a horse goes on an easy trot; and they run as fast as a horse can gallop; which seldom happens in their wild state, except when they are provoked or frightened. The tame elephants are commonly walked; they travel easily, and without fatigue, fifteen or twenty leagues a day; and, when hurried, they can travel thirty-five or forty. Their steps are heard at a great distance, and they may be followed by their tracks, for the marks they leave on the ground are fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter.
A domestic elephant does, perhaps, to his master more real service than five or six horses; but he requires much care and abundance of good food; it is computed that he consumes to the amount of an hundred pence per day. He is commonly fed with raw or boiled rice mixed with water; and it is reckoned he wants one hundred pounds of rice daily to be kept in his full vigour; they give him also grass to cool him, for he is often over-heated, and must be led to the water that he may bathe two or three times a day; he easily learns to wash himself; he takes the water up in his trunk, carries it to his mouth, drinks part, and then by elevating his trunk, lets the remainder flow over every part of his body. To give an idea of the services he is able to perform, it is sufficient to observe, that all the bags, bales, and parcels, which are transported from one place to another in the Indies, are carried by elephants; that they carry burdens on their bodies, their necks, their tusks, and even with their mouths, by giving them the end of a rope which they hold with their teeth.
When the elephant is taken care of he lives a long time even in captivity; and it is to be presumed, that in a state of liberty his life is still longer. Some authors say he lives four or five hundred years; others, two or three hundred; and others, one hundred and twenty, thirty, and even one hundred and fifty years. I take this last opinion to be the nearest to the truth; and if it is certain, that captive elephants live one hundred and twenty or thirty years; those who are free, and enjoy all the conveniences and rights of Nature, must live at least two hundred; besides, if their gestation lasts two years, and thirty years are required to bring them to their full growth, we may be assured that their life extends to the term we have mentioned. It is not so much the captivity, as the change of climate which shortens their existence: whatever care is taken of the elephant, he does not live long in temperate, and still shorter in cold climates. The elephant which the King of Portugal sent to Louis XIV. in 1668, and who was then but four years old, died in his seventeenth, in January 1681, and lived only thirteen years in the menagerie of Versailles, where he was treated with care and tenderness, and fed with profusion; he had every day four score pounds of bread, twelve pints of wine, two buckets of porridge, with four or five pounds of bread in it, the last was changed every other day for two buckets of rice boiled in water, without reckoning what was given him by visitors. He had, besides, every day a sheaf of corn to amuse himself; for, after eating the ears, he made large whisps of the straw, and used them to drive away the flies. He delighted in breaking the straw in small bits, which he did with great dexterity with his trunk; and as he was led to walk daily, he pulled and eat the grass. The elephant who was lately at Naples, though the heat is greater than at Paris, lived there but a few years. Those which have been transported to Petersburg perished successively, notwithstanding they were well sheltered, covered, and warmed with stoves; consequently, we may conclude, that this animal cannot live in a state of nature, nor multiply in Europe. But I am surprised that the Portuguese, who first knew the use and value of these animals in the East Indies, did not transport them into the warm climate of Brasil, where they might have propagated, if left at liberty.