If elephants meet with a sick or wounded animal of their own species, they afford him all the assistance in their power. Should he die, they bury him, and carefully cover his body with branches of trees.
During a war in the East Indies, an elephant, that had received a flesh-wound from a cannon-ball, was conducted twice or thrice to the hospital, where he stretched himself upon the ground to have his wounds dressed. He afterwards always went thither by himself. The surgeon employed such means as he thought would conduce to his cure; he several times even cauterized the wound, and although the animal expressed the pain which this operation occasioned him, by the most piteous groaning, yet he never showed any other sentiments towards the operator than those of gratitude and affection. The surgeon was fortunate enough to completely cure him.
There is a further anecdote of this animal’s gratitude. A soldier at Pondicherry, who was accustomed, whenever he received a portion that came to his share, to carry a certain quantity of it to an elephant, having one day drank rather too freely, and finding himself pursued by the guards, who were going to take him to prison, took refuge under the elephant’s body and fell asleep. In vain did the guard try to force him from this asylum: the elephant protected him with his trunk. The next morning the soldier recovering from his drunken fit, shuddered to find himself stretched under the belly of this huge animal. The elephant, which, without doubt, perceived the embarrassment of the poor fellow, caressed him with his trunk, in order to dissipate his fears, and make him understand that he might now depart in safety.
It should not be forgotten that the poet of “The Seasons” refers to the sagacity of the elephant, his seclusion in his natural state, the arts by which he is ensnared, the magnificence of his appearance in oriental solemnities, and his use in warfare:—
Peaceful, beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade o’er Niger’s yellow stream,
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave;
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods,
High rais’d in solemn theatre around,
Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes!
O truly wise! with gentle might endow’d,
Though powerful, not destructive! Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth,
And empires rise and fall; regardless he
Of what the never-resting race of men
Project: thrice happy! could he ’scape their guile,
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state,
The pride of kings! or else his strength pervert,
And bid him rage among the mortal fray,
Astonish’d at the madness of mankind.
Thomson.