Amongst the last of the elephants noosed was the rogue. Though far more savage than the others, he joined in none of their charges and assaults on the fences, as they uniformly drove him off, and would not permit him to enter their circle. When dragged past another of his companions in misfortune, who was lying exhausted on the ground, he flew upon him and attempted to fasten his teeth in his head; this was the only instance of viciousness which occurred during the progress of the corral. When tied up and overpowered, he was at first noisy and violent, but soon lay down peacefully, a sign, according to the hunters, that his death was at hand. Their prognostication was correct; he continued for about twelve hours to cover himself with dust like the others, and to moisten it with water from his trunk; but at length he lay exhausted, and died so calmly, that having been moving but a few moments before, his death was only perceived by the myriads of black flies by which his body was almost instantly covered, although not one was visible a moment before.[241]
But this peculiarity is not confined to rogue elephants. Thus 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!'
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.'[242]
And Sir E. Tennent observes that,—
In the process of taming, the presence of the tame ones can generally be dispensed with after two months, and the captive may then be ridden by the driver alone; and after three or four months he may be entrusted with labour, so far as regards docility; but it is undesirable, and even involves the risk of life, to work an elephant too soon; it has frequently happened that a valuable animal has lain down and died the first time it was tried in harness, from what the natives believed to be 'broken heart,' certainly without any cause inferable from injury or previous disease.[243]
Nor is this tendency to die under the influence of mere emotion restricted to the effect of a 'broken heart;' it seems also to occur under the power of strong emotional disturbances of other kinds. For instance, an elephant caught and trained by Mr. Cripps is thus alluded to by Sir E. Tennent:—
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 fort, that on coaxing him to enter the gate he became paralysed in the extraordinary way elsewhere alluded to, and died on the spot.
General Intelligence.
The higher mental faculties of the elephant are more advanced in their development than in any other animal, except the dog and monkey. I shall, therefore, devote some considerable space to the narration of instances of its display. The general fact that elephants are habitually employed in certain parts of India for the purposes of building, storing timber, &c., in itself shows a level of docile intelligence which only that of the dog can rival; but I shall here confine myself to stating special instances of the display of sagacity unusually high, even for the elephant.
Capt. Shipp, in his 'Memoirs,' gives the following incident, of which he was an eye-witness. During a march with guns in the mountainous districts of India, the force of which he was a member came to a steep ascent. A staircase of logs was prepared to enable the elephants to ascend the slope. When all was ready the first elephant was led to the bottom of the staircase:—