The author of “The Chase” elegantly describes one of the devices by which the elephant is caught in his own domains:—
On distant Ethiopia’s sunburnt coasts,
The black inhabitants a pitfall frame,
With slender poles the wide capacious mouth,
And hurdles slight, they close; o’er these is spread
A floor of verdant turf, with all its flowers
Smiling delusive, and from strictest search
Concealing the deep grave that yawns below.
Then boughs of trees they cut, with tempting fruit
Of various kinds surcharg’d, the downy peach,
The clustering vine, and of bright golden rind
The fragrant orange. Soon as evening grey
Advances slow, besprinkling all around
With kind refreshing dews the thirsty globe,
The stately elephant from the close shade
With step majestic strides, eager to taste
The cooler breeze, that from the sea-beat shore
Delightful breathes, or in the limpid stream
To lave his panting sides; joyous he scents
The rich repast, unweeting of the death
That lurks within. And soon he sporting breaks
The brittle boughs, and greedily devours
The fruit delicious. Ah! too dearly bought;
The price is life. For now the treacherous turf
Trembling gives way; and the unwieldy beast
Self sinking, drops into the dark profound.
So when dilated vapours, struggling, heave
Th’ incumbent earth; if chance the cavern’d ground
Shrinking subside, and the thin surface yield,
Down sinks at once the ponderous dome, ingulph’d
With all its towers.
Somervile.
According to Bayle, the Romans called elephants Boves Lucas, because, as it is reported, they saw them for the first time in Lucania, during a great battle with Pyrrhus. The issue of the conflict was extremely doubtful, for the ground on both sides was lost and won seven times; but, at last, the Epirotes got the victory by means of their elephants, whose smell frighted the Roman horses. In a subsequent engagement they were fatal to Pyrrhus; they threw his troops into disorder, and the Romans were victorious.
Elephantiasis is a disease in man, deriving its name from the elephant, who is also afflicted with a similar disorder. It is also called the Arabian leprosy. Medical treatises describe its appearances, mode of cure in the human being. As few readers possess elephants, it will not be necessary to say more of it, than that it is cutaneous; and that to prevent it in the elephant, the Indians apply oil to the animal’s skin, which, to preserve its pliancy, they frequently bathe with the unctuous fluid.
Some parts of the elephant’s skin, which are not callous, are seized upon by flies, and they torture the animal exceedingly. His tail is too short to reach any portion of his body, and his trunk alone is insufficient to defend him from myriads of his petty enemies. In his native forests he snaps branches from the trees, and with his trunk brushes off his tormentors, and fans the air to prevent their settling on him. In a confined state, he converts a truss of hay into a wisp for the same purpose; and he often gathers up the dust with his trunk and covers the sensible places.
It is related by M. Navarette, that at Macassar, an elephant driver had a cocoa nut given him, which, out of wantonness, he struck twice against his elephant’s forehead to break, and that, the day following, the animal saw some cocoa nuts exposed in the street for sale, one of which he took up with his trunk, and beat it about the driver’s head, till the man was completely dead. “This comes,” says our author, “of jesting with elephants.”