If we now follow this largest of game into its native haunts, and note those experiences by which its pursuit is attended, what has been said with reference to the habits and character of elephants will, in the main, be found to rest upon good evidence. The outlook will be quite different according to where the animals are found. In India elephants live almost altogether in forests, while in Africa this is not the case. A hunter on the “Dark Continent” may also ride; quite an advantage in escaping a charge, and also in following a beast who, when frightened, frequently goes forty miles at a stretch. Dogs can always divert this creature’s attention from the man who is about to kill him. The barking of a few curs about his feet never fails to make an enraged elephant forget the object of attack.
Sir Samuel Baker (“Wild Beasts and their Ways”) and Colonel Pollok (“Sport in British Burmah”) have described at length the most vulnerable points in the body and head, but sporting stories and details, except in so far as they illustrate temper and traits of character, are beside the purpose here. It may be said, however, that the forehead shot, so constantly made in India, cannot be resorted to with an African elephant. It has been tried a great many times, and there are only two or three instances on record where the animal has been killed. This is due to a difference of conformation in the skull, in the position of the brain, and to the manner in which this elephant holds its head in charging, says F. C. Selous (“Travel and Adventure in South East Africa”).
Without going into anatomical details, it may be said that an African is about a foot taller than an Indian elephant, his ears are much larger, his back is concave instead of convex, and the tusks are much heavier and longer. Their position in the jaw also differs; they converge in passing backwards and upwards into the massive processes in which they are set, so that their roots, and the masses of bone and cartilage which form their sockets, effectually protect the brain, which lies low behind the receding forehead.
Speaking of hunting on horseback, W. Knighton (“Forest Life in Ceylon”) mentioned it as a well-known fact that “the elephant has an antipathy towards a horse.” “A solitary traveller is perfectly safe while mounted” he remarks. To the best of the author’s knowledge and belief, the fact is directly the other way. Horses, until accustomed to their sight and odor, fear elephants, but the latter care nothing about them. They have never been known to hesitate in attacking hunters in the saddle. The Hamran and Baggara Arabs on the Upper Nile and its tributaries nearly always meet them in this manner. The only weapon used by these aggageers, or sword-hunters, is a long, heavy, sharp, double-edged Solingen blade. Three men generally hunt together, and their method of procedure shows how well they know the elephant’s character.
Having found the fresh spoor of an old bull whose tusks are presumably worth winning, they track it to its resting or feeding place, and approach with no other precaution than is necessary to keep their quarry from taking refuge in some mimosa thicket where their swords cannot be used. When possible, the animal, who appreciates the situation perfectly, and knows all about sword-hunters, always makes itself safe in that way. If no cover is within reach, the elephant backs up against a rock, a clump of bushes, bank, or anything that will guard it in the rear, and awaits its enemies with that peculiarly devilish expression of countenance an elephant wears when murderously inclined. Supposing the aggageers to be three in number, and mounted,—two of them close slowly in upon his flanks, while the third—the lightest weight, on the most active and best broken horse—gradually approaches in front. There stands the elephant with cocked ears and gleaming eyes, and the Arab slowly drawing nearer, sits in his saddle and reviles him. Finally, what the Hamrans or Baggaras knew from the first would happen actually takes place. The elephant forgets everything, and dashes forward to annihilate this little wretch who has been cursing and pitching pieces of dirt at him. Then the horse is whirled round, and keeping just out of reach of his trunk, its rider lures the enraged animal on. As soon as he starts, those riders on his quarters swoop down at full speed, and when the one on his left comes alongside, he springs to the ground, bounds forward, his sword flashes in the air, and all is over. The foot turns up in front, in consequence of cutting the tendon that keeps it in place, and its blood rapidly drains away through the divided vessels until the animal dies.
That “the reasoning elephant,” of whom Vartomannus (“Apud Gesnerum”) exclaims in terms that have been repeated for nearly two thousand years, “Vidi elephantos quosdam qui prudentiores mihi vidabantur quàm quibusdam in locis hominis,” should have thus relinquished his advantages, abandoned an unassailable position, and knowing the consequences, rushed upon destruction in this way, is deplorable, and the worst of it is that he always does this. The intellect of which Strabo calmly asserts that it “ad rationale animal proxime accedit,” is never sufficient to save him. Probably, however, this conduct might appear to be more consistent, if instead of trusting to these very classical but perfectly worthless opinions, we looked upon it from the standpoint which Sanderson’s description affords. “Though possessed of a proboscis which is capable of guarding it against such dangers, the elephant readily falls into pits dug to receive it, and which are only covered with a few sticks and leaves. Its fellows make no effort (in general) to assist the fallen one, as they might easily do by kicking in the earth around the edge, but fly in terror. It commonly happens that a young elephant tumbles into a pit, near which its mother will remain till the hunters come, without doing anything to help it; not even feeding it by throwing in a few branches.... Whole herds of elephants are led into enclosures which they could break through as easily as if they were made of corn stalks ... and which no other wild animal would enter; and single ones are caught by their hind legs being tied together by men under cover of tame elephants. Animals that happen to escape are captured again without trouble; even experience does not bring them wisdom. I do not think that I traduce the elephant, when I say that it is, in many things, a stupid animal.”
Baldwin, Harris, and a few other authorities, report that elephants are sometimes attacked by the black rhinoceros, but otherwise they have no foes except man. In Sir James Alexander’s account (“Excursion into Africa”) of the manner in which these beasts attempt to defend themselves against the charge of an enemy of this kind, it is implied that the trunk is habitually used offensively. “In fighting the elephant,” he observes, the two-horned black rhinoceros, for no white rhinoceros ever does this, “avoids the blow with its trunk and the thrust with its tusks, dashes at the elephant’s belly, and rips it up.” Quite a number of writers have derided and denied statements of this nature, and if it were not that they have likewise scouted everything which they did not see themselves, their dissent might have more weight than it has. Everybody knows that the species of rhinoceros spoken of are of all wild beasts the most irritable, aggressive, and blindly ferocious; that they will, as Selous asserts, “charge anybody or anything.” Apart from the question whether this kind of combat ever takes place, or what the result would be if it did, so many reasons exist why the trunk should not be used like a flail, as here represented, that good observers have failed to recognize the fact that it sometimes is so employed. At all events, in face of various assertions to the effect that it never strikes with its trunk, we find Andersson nearly killed in this manner. He was shooting from a “skärm”; that is to say, a trench about four feet deep, twelve or fifteen long, and strongly roofed except at the ends. This hiding-place and fortification occupied “a narrow neck of land dividing two small pools”—the water-holes of Kabis in Africa. “It was a magnificent moonlight night,” and the hunter soon heard the beasts coming along a rocky ravine near by. Directly, “an immense elephant followed by the towering forms of eighteen other bulls” moved down from high ground towards his hiding place, “with free, sweeping, unsuspecting, and stately step.” In the luminous mist their colossal figures assumed gigantic proportions, “but the leader’s position did not afford an opportunity for the shoulder shot,” and Andersson waited until his “enormous bulk” actually towered above his head, without firing. “The consequence was,” he says “that in the act of raising the muzzle of my rifle over the skärm, my body caught his eye, and before I could place the piece to my shoulder, he swung himself round, and with trunk elevated, and ears spread, desperately charged me. It was now too late to think of flight, much less of slaying the savage beast. My own life was in the most imminent jeopardy; and seeing that if I remained partially erect he would inevitably seize me with his proboscis, I threw myself upon my back with some violence; in which position, and without shouldering the rifle, I fired upwards at random towards his chest, uttering at the same time the most piercing shouts and cries. The change of position in all probability saved my life; for at the same instant, the enraged animal’s trunk descended precisely upon the spot where I had been previously crouched, sweeping away the stones (many of them of large size) that formed the front of my skärm, as if they had been pebbles. In another moment his broad forefoot passed directly over my face.” Confused, as Andersson supposed, by his cries, and by the wound he had received, the elephant “swerved to the left, and went off with considerable rapidity.”
Of course, taking this narrative literally, it may be said that it is not an illustration of the point under discussion—that the elephant attempted to catch the man first, in order to kill him afterwards. But prehensile organs are not used as such in the way described. That Andersson was about to be seized was purely suppositious upon his part, while the descent of the elephant’s proboscis, with such violence that it swept away large stones as if they had been pebbles, was a matter of fact. The animal did strike, whether he intended to do so or not, and that this was not his intention is merely a guess. This story illustrates other traits also, and among these the alleged fear of man. “An implanted instinct of that kind,” observes William J. Burchell (“Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa”) “such as all wild beasts have, their timidity and submission, form part of that wise plan predetermined by the Deity, for giving supreme power to him who is, physically, the weakest of them all.” The only objection to this very orthodox statement is that it is not true. Man is not weaker than many wild animals, and so far as “timidity and submission” go, he might have found African tribes barricading their villages and sleeping in trees for no other purpose than to keep out of their way. Caution proceeds from apprehension, and this from an experience of peril. When the conditions of existence are such that certain dangers persist, wariness in those directions originates and becomes hereditary. Man has been the elephant’s constant foe, and in those places where human beings were able to destroy them, these animals were overawed; but otherwise not, or at least, certainly not in the sense in which this assertion is generally made. With regard to the conclusions—many of them directly contradictory—which prevail concerning the elephant’s sense of smell, there are several circumstances which ought to be taken into consideration, but with the exception of currents of air, they have not been noticed to the author’s knowledge. Scent in an elephant is very acute, and the scope of this sense, as well as its delicacy and discrimination, is greater than in most animals. At the same time, the nervous energy that vitalizes this apparatus is variable in quantity, and never exceeds a definite amount at any one time. If wind sweeps away those emanations which would otherwise have stimulated the olfactories, no result occurs, and precisely the same consequence follows a diversion of nerve force into other channels.
Many accounts have been given in which this seemed to be the cause of an unconsciousness that was explained by saying that the sense itself was in fault. Evidently, however, when the energy through which an organ acts is fully employed in carrying on action somewhere else, its function must be temporarily checked. Preoccupation, however, fully accounts for the phenomenon. Thought, feeling, concentrations of attention, physical and mental oscillations of many kinds, perturb, check, pervert, augment, or diminish function in this and other directions. If we cannot accustom ourselves to looking upon wild beasts as acting consciously and voluntarily, it seems probable that little progress towards understanding their habits and characters is likely to be made.
How, for example, are the following facts related by Gordon Cumming, to be reconciled with conventional opinions upon the shyness and timidity of elephants, their fear of man, and the possession of instincts which act independently of experience. It was in comparatively early times that these events took place, before many Europeans with rifles had gone into Africa, and when elephants knew less about firearms than they did when the big tusker nearly finished Andersson. “Three princely bulls,” says Colonel Cumming, “came up one night to the fountain of La Bono.” They knew that a man was there, for they had got his wind. It is possible that they also knew he was not a native, but if this were the case, that was all that they knew.