Courage in the Great Apes. After forty years of ape study, with many kinds of evidence, I am convinced that the courage and the alleged ferocity of the gorilla has been much over-rated. I believe this is due to the influence upon the human mind of the great size and terrifying aspect of the animal.
Of all the men whom I have known or read, the late R. L. Garner knew by far the most of gorilla habits and character by personal observation in the gorilla jungles of equatorial Africa. And never, in several years of intimate contact with Mr, Garner did he so much as once put forth a statement or an estimate that seemed to me exaggerated or overcolored.
In our many discussions of gorilla character Mr. Garner always represented that animal as very shy, wary of observation by man, profoundly cunning in raiding in darkness the banana plantations of man's villages, and most carefully avoiding exposures by daylight. He described the gorilla as practically never attacking men unless first attacked by them, and fleeing unless forcibly brought to bay. He told me of are doubtable African tribesman who once captured a baby gorilla on the ground by suddenly attacking the mother with his club and beating her so successfully that she fled from him and abandoned her young. "But," said Mr. Garner, "there is only one tribe in Africa that could turn out a man who would attempt a feat like that."
That the gorilla can and will fight furiously and effectively when brought to bay is well known, and never denied.
Of the apes I have known in captivity, the chimpanzees are by far the most aggressive, courageous and dangerous. A vigorous male specimen over eight years of age is more dangerous than a lion, or tiger, or grizzly bear, and far more anxious to fight something. I think that even if our Boma were muzzled, no five men of my acquaintance could catch him and tie his hands and feet.
The orang-utan is only half the fighter that the chimpanzee is. Even the adult males are not persistently aggressive, or inflamed by savage desires to hurt somebody.
Courage in Elephants as an Asset. In all portions of India wherein tiger hunting with elephants is practiced, elephants with good courage are at a premium. No elephant is fit to carry a howdah in a line of beaters, with a valuable sahib on board, unless its courage can stand the acid test of a wounded tiger's charge. When an elephant can endure without panic an infuriated tiger climbing up its frontispiece to get at the unhappy mahout and the hunter, that elephant belongs in the courageous class. The cowardly elephant screams in terror, bolts for the rear, and if there is a tree in the landscape promptly wrecks the howdah and the sportsman against its lower branches.
A "rogue" elephant always reminds me of my Barbados boatman's description of a pugnacious friend: "De trouble is, he am too brave!" A rogue elephant will attack anything from a wheelbarrow to a hut, and destroy it. The peak of rogue ambition was reached on a railway in Burma, near Ban Klap, in March 1908, when a rogue elephant "on hearing the locomotive whistle, trumpeted loudly and then, lowering his head, charged the oncoming train. The impact was tremendous. Such was the impetus of the great pachyderm that the engine was partially derailed, the front of the smoke-box shattered as far as the tubes, the cow-catcher was crushed into a shapeless piece of iron, and other damages of minor importance were sustained. The train was going thirty-four miles per hour, and the engine alone weighed between forty and fifty tons.
"Of course the elephant was killed by the shock, its head being completely smashed…. It is believed that this particular rogue had been responsible for considerable damage to villages in the vicinity of Lopbusi. A number of houses have been pulled down recently and havoc wrought in other ways."
On another occasion a vicious rogue elephant elected to try conclusions with a railway train. In 1906, on the Korat branch of the Siamese State Railway, a bull elephant attacked a freight train running at full speed. He charged the rushing locomotive, with the result that the locomotive and several cars were derailed and sent down the side of the grade, and two persons were killed. The elephant was killed outright and buried under the wreck of the train. This occurred in open country, where there was no excuse for an elephant on the track, and therefore the charge of the rogue was wholly gratuitous.