Footnote 2171: [(return)]
A correspondent informs me that on the Malabar coast of India, the elephant, when employed in dragging stones, moves them by means of a rope, which he either draws with his forehead, or manages by seizing it in his teeth.
Footnote 2181: [(return)]
"Here the trees were large and handsome, but not strong enough to resist the inconceivable strength of the mighty monarch of these forests; almost every tree had half its branches broken short by them and at every hundred yards I came upon entire trees, and these, the largest in the forest, uprooted clean out of the ground, and broken short across their stems."—A Hunter's Life in South Africa. By R. GORDON CUMMING, vol. ii. p. 305.—
"Spreading out from one another, they smash and destroy all the finest trees in the forest which happen to be in their course.... I have rode through forests where the trees thus broken lay so thick across one another, that it was almost impossible to ride through the district."—Ibid., p. 310.
Mr. Gordon Cumming does not name the trees which he saw thus "uprooted" and "broken across," nor has he given any idea of their size and weight; but Major DENHAM, who observed like traces of the elephant in Africa, saw only small trees overthrown by them; and Mr. PRINGLE, who had an opportunity of observing similar practices of the animals in the neutral territory of the Eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, describes their ravages as being confined to the mimosas, "immense numbers of which had been torn out of the ground, and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease on the soft and juicy roots, which form a favourite part of their food. Many of the larger mimosas had resisted all their efforts; and indeed, it is only after heavy rain, when the soil is soft and loose, that they ever successfully attempt this operation."—Pringle's Sketches of South Africa.
Footnote 2201: [(return)]
Menageries, &c., "The Elephant," vol. ii. p. 23.
Footnote 2202: [(return)]
Ibid., ch. vi. p. 138.
Footnote 2211: [(return)]
Menageries, &c., "The Elephant," vol. i. p. 19.
Footnote 2221: [(return)]
The principal sound by which the mahouts in Ceylon direct the motions of the elephants is a repetition, with various modulations, of the words ur-re! ur-re! This is one of those interjections in which the sound is so expressive of the sense that persons in charge of animals of almost every description throughout the world appear to have adopted it with a concurrence that is very curious. The drivers of camels in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage them to speed by shouting ar-ré! ar-ré! The Arabs in Algeria cry eirich! to their mules. The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where mules are still driven with cries of arré (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of "arrieros"). In France the Sportsman excites the hound by shouts of hare! hare! and the waggoner there turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word hurhaut! In the North, "Hurs was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed;" and to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their pigs with shouts of hurrish! a sound closely resembling that used by the mahouts in Ceylon.
Footnote 2231: [(return)]
On the Difference between the Human Membrana Tympani and that of the Elephant. By Sir EVERARD HOME, Bart., Philos. Trans., 1823. Paper by Prof. HARRISON. Proc. Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. p. 386.
Footnote 2232: [(return)]
I have already noticed the striking effect produced on the captive elephants in the corral, by the harmonious notes of an ivory flute; and on looking to the graphic description which is given by ÆLIAN of the exploits which he witnessed as performed by the elephants exhibited at Rome, it is remarkable how very large a share of their training appears to have been ascribed to the employment of music.
PHILE, in the account which he has given of the elephant's fondness for music, would almost seem to have versified the prose narrative of ÆLIAN, as he describes its excitement at the more animated portions, its step being regulated to the time and movements of the harmony: the whole "surprising in a creature whose limbs are without joints!
[Greek: "Kainon ti poiôn ex anarthrôn organôn.">[
PHILE, Expos. de Eleph, 1. 216.
For an account of the training and performances of the elephants at Rome, as narrated by ÆLIAN see the appendix to this chapter.
Footnote 2251: [(return)]
The Angler in the Lake District, p. 23.
Footnote 2252: [(return)]
A shocking account of the death of this poor animal is given in HONE'S Every-Day Book, March, 1830, p. 337.