On the 27th of September, 1763, captain Sampson presented an elephant, brought by him from Bengal, to his majesty, at the queen’s house. It was conducted from Rotherhithe that morning at two o’clock, and two blacks and a seaman rode on his back. The animal was about eight feet high.
The zebra, now well known from its being frequently brought into this country, was at that time almost a “stranger in England.” One of them having been given to her late majesty queen Charlotte, obtained the name of the “queen’s ass,” and was honoured by a residence in the tower, whither the elephant was also conveyed. Their companionship occasioned some witticisms, of which there remains this specimen.
EPIGRAM
On the Elephant’s being placed in the
same table with the Zebra.
Ye critics so learn’d, whence comes it to pass
That the elephant wise should be plac’d by an ass?
This matter so strange I’ll unfold in a trice,
Some asses of state stand in need of advice
To screen them from justice, lest in an ill hour,
In the elephant’s stead they be sent to the tower.
On the occasion of captain Sampson’s present to the king, several accounts of the elephant were written. One of them says, that “the largest and finest elephants in the world are those in the island of Ceylon; next to them, those of the continent of India; and lastly, the elephant of Africa.” The Moors, who deal in these animals throughout the Indies, have a fixed price for the ordinary sort, according to their size. They measure from the nail of the fore foot to the top of the shoulder, and for every cubit high they give after the rate of 100l. of our money. An African elephant of the largest size measures about nine cubits, or thirteen feet and a half in height, and is worth about 900l., but of the breed of Ceylon, four times that sum.”
Tavernier, in proof of the superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, says, “One, I will tell you, hardly to be believed, but that which is a certain truth, which is, that when any other king, or rajah, has one of these elephants of Ceylon, if they bring them any other breed in any other place whatever, so soon as the other elephants behold the Ceylon elephants, by an instinct of nature, they do them reverence, by laying their trunks upon the ground, and raising them up again.”
Though Cæsar does not mention the fact in his commentaries, yet it is certain that he brought elephants with him to England, and that they contributed to his conquest of our predecessors. Polyænus in his “Stratagems,” says, “Cæsar in Britain attempted to pass a great river, (supposed the Thames:) Casolaunus, (in Cæsar, Cassivellaunus) king of the Britons, opposed his passage with a large body of horse and chariots. Cæsar had in his company a vastly large elephant, (μεγιστος ἑλεφας) a creature before that time unknown to the Britons. This elephant he fenced with an iron coat of mail, built a large turret on it, and putting up bowmen and slingers, ordered them to pass first into the stream. The Britons were dismayed at the sight of such an unknown and monstrous beast, (ἁοραλον κ’ ὑπεροφες θηριον) they fled, therefore, with their horses and chariots, and the Romans passed the river without opposition, terrifying their enemies by this single creature.”