[152] Menageries, etc. ch. vi. p. 138.
[153] Menageries, etc. “The Elephant,” vol. i. p. 19.
[154] 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 Sir Francis Head, in his Bubbles from the Brunnens, describes the Schwin-General shouting “ariff” to his pigs...“ariff! vociferated the old man, striding after one of his rebellious subjects; ariff! re-echoed his boy striding after another.” (P.94.)
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.
[155] 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.
[156] 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!”
Καινόν τι ποιῶν ἐξ ἀνάρθρων ὀργάνων.
Phile, Expos. de Eleph. l. 216.
For an account of the training and performances of the elephants at Rome, as narrated by Ælian, see the appendix to this chapter.