He shines most as a special Providence when the cattle of a baggage train or the horses of a battery are stalled in a bog or struggling helplessly at a steep place. An elephant's tusks and trunk serve at once as lever, screw-jack, dog-hooks, and crane, quickly setting overturned carts and gun-carriages right, lifting them by main force or dragging them in narrow winding defiles where a long team cannot act; while his head, protected by a pad, is a ram of immense force and superior handiness.
I write "he" mechanically, but it ought to be said that in consequence of the liability of the male to occasional fits of ill-temper from functional causes, it has been decreed that only females are to enter Government service, and they should not be less than twenty or more than thirty years of age, capable of carrying 1200 pounds for a first-class elephant (eight feet high and over) and 960 pounds for a second-class animal (under eight feet in height), exclusive of gear. No recruit under seven feet should be admitted. Male animals are preferred by Native Princes on account of their larger size and prouder bearing, and among about two thousand elephants owned by the British Government a few males are kept for State and parade purposes. An elephant at twenty-five years of age may be compared to a human being of eighteen. He attains his full strength and vigour at about thirty-five, and has been known to live a hundred and twenty years.
ELEPHANT PILING TIMBER (BURMAH)
A born forester, it is in jungle-work that the labouring elephant outside Government service is seen at his best. The tea-planters of Assam and Ceylon find him useful in forest clearing and as a pack animal. They even yoke him to the plough. He is the leading hand in the teak trade of Burmah,—unrivalled in the heavy toil of the timber-yard, where he piles logs with wonderful neatness and quickness. Small timbers are carried on the tusks, clipped over and held fast by the trunk. A log with a thick butt is seized with judicious appreciation of balance, while long and heavy baulks are levered and pushed into place.
ELEPHANT LIFTING TEAK LOGS (BURMAH)
As to its keep, the elephant is a chargeable beast; costing from £4 to £8 a month when rations of rice or wheaten flour cakes are given, as they should be, with fodder-stalks and leaves of various kinds. Rum, brandy, or arrack, mixed with ginger, cloves, pepper, and treacle, and made into a paste with flour, provide the elephant with a sort of tipsy-cake that cheers and comforts him when suffering from fatigue or cold. In the matter of food and stimulants, however, mahouts have no conscience, and steal without a qualm. Ages of slack-handed usage have settled that the servant of the elephant and three generations of his family shall live on the beast he is paid to cherish. Allowances are given for flour, fire-wood, oil, and spices, but the elephant only gets a share in them, and not always that. So the worst ailment he has to face is semi-starvation, the lot of most elephants in captivity. The beast is in truth a noble anachronism, belonging to a young world time of denser foliage than this dried-up age which packs hay in trusses and treasures ensilage in pits. But the thievish mahout is responsible for the worst of his belly-pinch. Yet elephant men are usually spoken of as models of devotion to their beasts. "They love 'em, sir," said an English officer to me once. But that does not prevent their showing an indifference to their comfort, characteristic of all Orientals, whose talk often drips with sentiment, while their practice is of dry brutality. The acknowledged authorities on the subject, Mr. Sanderson and the late Mr. J. H. Steel, agree that mahouts invariably make the animals' comfort subservient to their own. Even the best of them will seldom take the trouble to put their beasts under the shadow of a tree at mid-day. They also have the cruel Indian trick of securing the animals fore and aft in the most irksome manner possible. A rope or chain fastened to one foot and to a peg in the ground is sufficient restraint for most elephants, and allows them to turn to and from the sun and wind as they find agreeable. Mahouts think nothing of securing an animal so that one side is exposed day and night to wind or rain. The practice of tight tying up is particularly repugnant to those who have a sympathetic knowledge of the restless, swaying, Johnsonian habit rooted in the beast's nature. The native servant himself keenly appreciates his liberty and is the most elusive creature alive, perpetually slinking from his duty into the jungles of the bazar. But when he ruleth he is a terrible despot.
Outside India it is believed that elephants are dying out of the land. The example of America, where the men and creatures natural to the soil have been exterminated to make room for a too triumphant civilisation, has taught the world a lesson of anxiety. But animal lovers may rest content, for the elephants of India, like the people, are increasing in numbers. They are carefully protected in their natural haunts, whence English officers of experience draw supplies for use with as much system and regularity as sheep are drafted from the hillside flock. The details of the Government kheddah or capturing arrangements are full of interest,—sport in its finest sense; nor is it easy to say whether the skill in woodcraft of the English directors, or the courage, endurance, and patience of the natives employed, are most admirable. Like a strong ass between two burdens, the British Government has been beaten with many staves, and also with fools' truncheons of pantomime paper, but, at least, it has tried to husband the resources of the country.
The thoughtful Germans are said to meditate the re-capture and domestication in their new Equatorial realm of the African elephant, free since the days of Hannibal. It is to be hoped this is true, for there is naught sillier under the sun than the slaughter which has hitherto been all that civilisation had to bestow on these blameless Ethiopians.