The last operation of the corral is to slacken the ropes and march each captive elephant down to the river between two tame ones. Both of the tame elephants are furnished with strong collars, and a similar collar is formed on the neck of the wild one, who stands between them, by successive coils of coconut; then these collars are connected, and the prisoner made secure between his guards. Then the nooses which have confined his feet are removed, and the three animals march to the river, where they are allowed to bathe. After the bath the captive elephant is made fast to some tree in the forest, keepers are assigned to him, as well as a retinue of leaf-cutters, whose duty it is to keep him supplied with such food as he most relishes. These arrangements being made, he is left to the care of his new masters, who will see that he is trained up in the way he should go.
THE WAY THAT ELEPHANTS ARE TRAINED.
It is a very general impression that the training of these huge and powerful animals is a work of great difficulty and tediousness. This is a mistake. Elephants are naturally of a mild and docile nature, although hunters and travelers, to add luster to their own exploits, have represented them otherwise. Even the notorious “rogues”[[3]] are not such wholly bad fellows as has been asserted by some of these writers, and the Mayne Reid style of natural history must be taken with considerable allowance. In their wild state it is very seldom that they attack any person or animal, unless provoked or assailed, and even when some heroic hunter sneaks up to shoot them unawares, or from some secure position peppers them with his rifle, the animals usually appear only anxious to escape from their aggressor.[[4]]
[3]. Most readers are familiar with the term “rogue” as applied to elephants, but probably some are not aware of its exact meaning. A herd of elephants is a family, and not a group collected by accident or attachment. The usual number of individuals in a herd is from ten to twenty, though the latter number is sometimes exceeded. In their visits to water-courses and migrations, alliances are formed between members of different herds, thus introducing new blood into the family. If an individual becomes separated from his herd, however, he is not permitted to introduce himself into another. He may browse in their vicinity, or resort to the same stream to bathe or drink, but farther than this no acquaintance is allowed. An elephant who has lost his herd, and is by this habit of exclusiveness made an outcast, is a “rogue,” and this ban under which he suffers tends to excite that moroseness and savageness for which rogues are noted. Another conjecture is, that as rogues are almost always males, the death or capture of particular females has led them to leave their herds to seek new alliances. A tame elephant escaping from captivity, unable to find his former companions, becomes of necessity a rogue.
[4]. We could never experience any other feelings than disgust at the cruelty, and pity for the animals, at reading the sickening details with which, with a slaughter-house gusto, certain heroes have graced the narratives of their exploits. Gordon Cummings gives an account of his pursuit of a wounded elephant which he had lamed by lodging a ball in its shoulder blade. It limped slowly toward a tree, against which it leaned itself in helpless agony, whilst its pursuer seated himself in front of it, in safety, to boil his coffee, and observe its sufferings. The story is continued as follows: “Having admired him for a considerable time, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points; and approaching very near I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and shocked at finding that I was only prolonging the sufferings of the noble beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish the proceeding with all possible despatch, and accordingly opened fire upon him from the left side, aiming at the shoulder. I first fired six shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal. After which I fired six shots at the same part with the Dutch six-pounder. Large tears now trickled from his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side, he expired.”
In another place, after detailing the manner in which he assailed a poor animal, he says: “I was loading and firing as fast as could be, sometimes at the head, sometimes behind the shoulder, until my elephant’s forequarter was a mass of gore: notwithstanding which he continued to hold on, leaving the grass and branches of the forest scarlet in his wake. * * * * * Having fired thirty-five rounds with my two-grooved rifle, I opened upon him with the Dutch six-pounder, and when forty bullets perforated his hide, he began for the first time to evince signs of a dilapidated constitution.” The disgusting description is closed thus: “Throughout the charge he repeatedly cooled his person with large quantities of water, which he ejected from his trunk over his sides and back, and just as the pangs of death came over him, he stood trembling violently beside a thorn tree, and kept pouring water into his bloody mouth until he died, when he pitched heavily forward with the whole weight of his fore-quarters resting on the points of his tusks. The strain was fair, and the tusks did not yield; but the portion of his head in which the tusks were imbedded, extending a long way above the eye, yielded and burst with a muffled crash.”
“Sport” is noble, but a butcher is not necessarily a sportsman, and a useless destruction of life, where no more danger is incurred than in a butcher’s shambles, is not an absolute proof of courage or heroism, and the “noble hunters” have not the butcher’s excuse for the bloodshed. Whatever of heroism there is in these encounters, we cannot help thinking, is displayed by the elephants, and not by their aggressors. For a hunter to put such achievements as we have just quoted on record merely displays the egotism and cruelty of the man.
The training is simple, and the intelligence and obedience of the pupil are developed with remarkable rapidity. For the first three days, or until they will eat freely, which they seldom do in a shorter time, the newly captured elephants are allowed to remain perfectly quiet; and if practicable, a tame elephant is tied near them to give the wild ones confidence. Where many elephants are being trained at once, it is customary to put each new captive between the stalls of half-tamed ones, thereby inducing it to more readily take to its food. The next stage of the training process is commenced by placing a tame elephant on each side of the pupil, with the “cooroowe vidahn,” or head of the stables, standing in front, holding a long stick with a sharp iron point. Two men are then stationed one on either side, each holding an iron instrument furnished with both a sharp point and a hook. This is called a “hendoo” in Ceylon, and a “hawkus” in Bengal, and is the principal weapon used in guiding and controlling elephants, as it has been from very ancient times. This instrument is held toward the animal’s trunk, while one or two assistants rub their hands over his back, keeping up while doing so a soothing and plaintive chant, interspersed with endearing epithets, such as, “ho! my son,” or “ho! my father,” or “my mother,” as may be applicable to the age and sex of the captive. At first the elephant is furious, and strikes in all directions with his trunk; but the men in front receiving these blows on the points of their weapons, the extremity of the trunk becomes so sore that the animal curls it up close, and seldom afterward attempts to use it offensively. The first dread of man’s power being thus established, the process of taking him to bathe between two tame elephants is greatly facilitated, and by lengthening the neck rope, and drawing the feet together as close as possible, the process of laying him down in the water is finally accomplished by the keepers pressing the sharp points of their hendoos over the backbone.
MEDAL OF NUMIDIA, GIVING A REPRESENTATION OF AN ANCIENT HENDOO.