Part 3

Generally elephants kill their attendants, as being those most likely to give offence. An antipathy is, however, sometimes conceived against some casual acquaintance, whose efforts to ingratiate himself have only inspired the creatures with a causeless hatred. It is the fashion to say that homicide by these beasts always indicates that they have been injured. People endow elephants with an exaggerated form of the sensitive pride belonging to human character, and, through some unexplainable process of thought, reconcile its coexistence with the malignant temper of a murderous brute. The way in which one of their attendants talks to an elephant whom he suspects is strange enough. This man despises his intellect, and knows his character thoroughly. “Have I ever been wanting in respect? Astagh-fur-Ulla. God forbid! Let my Lord remember how yesterday at bathing-time he was placed under a tree, while that son of Satan, Said Bahadur, stood in the sun. Who has provided your highness with sugar-cane, and placed lumps of goor between your back teeth? I represent that this, oh, protector of the poor, it was my good fortune to do. Hereafter I will deprive those unsainted ones about you of their provisions and bestow them upon you.” That is the way a Hindu talks, hoping to mollify the animal.

Certain traits in animals have come to be accepted as peculiarly significant of their respective grades; parental affection, for example. The male elephant is as nearly as possible without a trace of this feeling, but his polygamous habits account to a great extent for the deficiency. It is a quality which greatly preponderates in females of most species, and in one so elevated we might expect to find that this, as Buffon asserts, was a prominent trait. Frederick Green informs us, however, that “the female elephant does not appear to have the affection for her offspring which one would be led to suppose,” and his view is very far from being singular. The author has not found any justification in facts for Buffon’s assertion to the contrary. Doctor Livingstone (“Travels and Researches in South Africa”) reports the case of a calf elephant whom its mother abandoned when attacked, and Sir W. Cornwallis Harris (“Wild Sports in Southern Africa”) says that a young animal of this kind if accidentally separated from its mother forgets her instantly, and seeks to attach itself to the nearest female it can find. Sanderson observes in this connection that “while the female evinces no particular affection for her progeny, still, all the attention a calf can get is from its own mother.”

G. Macloskie (“Riverside Natural History”) states that “elephants are well disposed towards each other in aggregation.” Evidently such must be the case, or they could not live together. Their gregarious habits imply an average friendliness.

While, however, their ordinary temper may, or rather must, be as stated, leadership in herds, when this is not held by a tuskless male or “some sagacious old female,” whose abilities their companions are intelligent enough to understand, is settled by combat, and maintained in the same way. Moreover, bull elephants often quarrel and fight desperately in the free state, and it is said by one or two observers (Drummond particularly) that when herds intoxicate themselves, as they do upon every opportunity, with the Um-ga-nu fruit, they exhibit scenes of riot and violence which cannot be matched on earth. Captive tuskers in elephant stables are always at feud with some other animal, and all their inmates quarrel upon small provocation. Recently-captured elephants that have not been removed from the corral frequently attack each other, and when some lost or exiled wanderer attempts in his distress and loneliness to join another band, its champion at once assails him.

There is one detestable trait, not uncommon among many species, and shared by a portion of savage mankind, which elephants do not display. They never destroy injured or disabled animals of their own kind. On the contrary, when sympathy does not involve self-sacrifice, they sometimes (not always by any means) show that they are not without the feeling, and this conclusion seems to be quite capable of resisting all the destructive criticism that can be brought to bear upon it.

Wild beasts have usually been written about both carelessly and dogmatically. Men, for the most part, no doubt unconsciously, speak of them as if they knew what it is impossible that they should know; and it is difficult to banish the suggestion that many of our prevailing opinions are in fact survivals from savagery. Public feeling towards elephants is undoubtedly swayed by their size, and by involuntary apprehension. We are struck by the contrast between the animal’s placid appearance and those powers it embodies. In short, people do not study elephants, or reason about them; they feel in a modified form those original impressions which operated upon their remote ancestors. Hence, in great measure probably, Buffon’s ipse dixit, “dans l’état sauvâge, l’éléphant n’est ni sanguinaire, ni féroce, il est d’un natural doux, et jamais il ne fait abus de ses armes, ou de sa force.” It is not so much the verbal statement that need be objected to in this sweeping assertion, as the spirit in which it is made. More is implied than said, and the implication is that an elephant is self-controlled by sentiments that are as foreign to its mind as a pair of wings would be to its body. A wild beast, which while free to follow its own devices and desires, does not conduct itself like a wild beast, is an impossibility in actual life.

Sanderson supposes that “all catching elephants”--the trained ones used in securing captives--“evince the greatest relish for the sport.” This is a mild way of putting Sir Emmerson Tennant’s opinion that they show a decided satisfaction, a malignant pleasure, such as Dr. Kemp (“Indications of Instinct”) describes, in the misfortunes of their fellows. Now in what way Sanderson discovered that this state of mind existed cannot be divined, for he gives it as the result of his own direct observations, that “the term decoy is entirely misapplied to tame elephants catching wild ones, as they act by command of their riders, and use no arts.... The animal is credited with originating what it has been taught, with doing of itself what it has been instructed to do.... I have seen the cream of trained elephants at work ... in Bengal and Mysore: I have managed them myself under all circumstances ... and I can say that I never have seen one display any aptitude for dealing undirected with an unexpected emergency.” Since he then believes them to be incapable of showing this “relish” by their actions, since he has never known them to do anything of themselves on these occasions, in what way did he find out how they felt?

All those who speak from experience concur in representing a hunted elephant who does not or cannot escape, as superlatively dangerous. This is not only attributable to the fact that he is then extremely fierce and determined, but also to his undoubted ability to use the great powers of attack and defence he possesses. The animal is capable of considerable speed for a short distance, but it is not possible for him to prolong effort to any great extent.

Selous asserts that no large creature, except a rhinoceros, matches the elephant in its activity upon rough ground. “They can wheel like lightning,” says Baker; or, as Andersson expresses it, “Spin round on a pivot.” Captain J. H. Baldwin (“Large and Small Game of Bengal”) describes their performances upon hillsides as very remarkable.

Captain James Forsyth informs us of the ease and celerity with which they move over a broken surface. Inglis (“Work and Sport on the Nepaul Frontier”) relates the dexterity and quickness of these ponderous beasts in crossing gullies that seem impassable. There is probably no animal safer to ride over a dangerous mountain road. Nervous as he is, his intelligence acts through a brain well enough organized to warn him against the consequences of carelessness. A horse will dash himself to death getting out of the way of a swaying shadow or whirling leaf, and on many journeys nobody thinks of mounting one; but the elephant’s prudence, if not his courage, is, as a rule, to be relied upon.

It has somewhat arbitrarily been decided upon that an elephant can travel at the rate of fifteen miles an hour for a few hundred yards, and no faster. Its gait has been similarly settled by several authorities. Dr. Livingstone declares that the animal’s “quickest pace is only a sharp walk.” Sanderson modifies this statement by saying that the rapid walk “is capable of being increased to a fast shuffle.” He adds the information that “an elephant cannot jump ... can never have all four feet off the ground at once ... and can neither trot, canter, nor gallop.” Joseph Thomson, however (“Through Masai Land”), saw one of these animals which he had wounded on the plateau of Baringo, “go off in a sharp trot,” and Colonel Barras, while beating a clump of bushes for a wounded tiger, rode his Shikar tusker Futteh Ali almost over the concealed brute; whereupon says Barras, “he spun round with the utmost velocity and fled at a rapid gallop. The pace was so well marked that it would be useless, as far as I am concerned, for any one to say that it was mechanically impossible for an elephant to use this gait. To such learned objectors I would point out the fact that impossibilities are of daily occurrence, and would further beg them to suspend judgment till they have sat on an elephant’s neck with an enraged tiger roaring at his heels.” Much the same restriction has been placed by some naturalists upon the camel’s paces. Nevertheless, Sir Samuel Baker and G. C. Stout were convinced that they had seen camels trot, and the author is quite as certain as Colonel Barras could possibly be that he has known them to gallop.

It has been the fashion to praise these animals indiscriminately. Among other things the silence maintained by so bulky a creature, and the noiselessness of its movements, are mentioned as evidences of great sagacity. An elephant, however, cannot make a noise with its feet except by kicking something out of the way or breaking it; their formation renders its tread, under ordinary circumstances, inaudible. The body also being elliptical in its long diameter, passes through undergrowth, when the animal is moving slowly, like a vessel through water. Further, obstacles that do not offer too much resistance are put aside easily by the trunk, which has all those varieties of motion that about fifty thousand sets of muscles can confer. More than this, quietness is not necessarily a mark of caution, foresight, or self-restraint, and some of the wariest creatures in existence are by no means quiet. As a matter of fact, if not alarmed or asleep,--in which case he snores in a manner conformable with his size,--the elephant is one of the noisiest of wild beasts. A perpetual crashing accompanies both individuals and herds while feeding, and in hours of repose they frequently trumpet, their deep abdominal rumble is often heard, and sounds expressive of contentment or dissatisfaction constantly break the silence of the forest.

When danger is apprehended, if they do not dash away “with the rush of a storm,” elephants are apt to remain motionless for a time, while straining their most perfect senses--those of hearing and smell--in order to ascertain its character and proximity, or one or more may advance cautiously in order to see. Having done this, they depart as secretly as possible, and in the way mentioned, but why anybody should wonder that these creatures, whose sagacity is considered to be so extraordinary, do not move off abreast instead of in single file, as is their custom, and thus voluntarily encounter the greatest amount of resistance, and ensure the most disturbance, it is not easy to understand. In all measures relating to evasion, as contradistinguished from precaution, these beings occupy an inferior position: their color makes them nearly indistinguishable in those places they mostly occupy, and the footfall is naturally noiseless, but they employ none of those arts in which many species are expert, and do not even confuse their trail. This deficiency in cunning cannot be accounted for by the off-hand explanation that the elephant, conscious of his strength, has no need to conceal himself. He has fully as much, if not more reason to do so, than many other animals, and the experience by which the latter have profited has been common to them all.

Those inferences which have oftentimes been drawn from the social life of elephants will scarcely stand the tests furnished by sociology. “A herd of elephants,” observes Leveson, “is not a group that accident or attachment may have induced to associate together, but a family,” between whose members “special resemblances attest their common origin.” Reasoning from statements like this, it is concluded that results accrue from an aggregation of relatives similiar to those which obtain in human families;--that they are, in effect, groups of the same kind, saved from disruption and made amenable to improvement by mutual aids, forbearances, affections, and distributions of office. But those resemblances discoverable do not warrant the comparison.

What we know of social groups among elephants is that they are unlike those formed by mankind. It is doubtful whether the family, properly so-called, primarily exists in human society, and whether it is not a later combination instituted upon the basis of common possessions. Starcke (“The Primitive Family”) holds that such is the case, and his view has not been shown to be incorrect. If this is true, to compare these congregations is to place lower animals by the side of human beings who have already taken an important step in advance. As a matter of fact, the qualities by which such groups are united among mankind, are to a great extent wanting with elephants. They cannot be wholly absent, but they are inconspicuous and obscured by disaggregative tendencies. As life advances, age does not bring with it a fruition of those tendencies upon which family ties depend; time only tends to exaggerate everything that is unsocial in the brute’s nature.

Many conclusions respecting the intellect and emotional character of elephants have been drawn from untrustworthy anecdotes. It is in an uncritical spirit that Professor Robinson (“Under the Sun”) reports the behavior of that famous tusker who bore the imperial standard on some old Mogul-Mahratta battle-field. The day had gone against his side, the color-guard was scattered, broken squadrons swept past the elephant, and his mahout was dead. He stood fast, however, and finally the retreating forces rallied around him, and the field was retrieved. Taken literally, his conduct amounted to this; namely, that his keeper whom he was accustomed to obey, ordered him to stand still, and he did so. Of course this animal possessed unusual nerve, but what else did he have? The high sense of duty Professor Robinson has discovered; heroic self-sacrifice that kept him, like the unrelieved Roman sentinels at Pompeii, on his post to the last? There is just the same reason for thinking so as there is for giving to the riderless horses who galloped with the Light Brigade towards the Russian guns at Balaklava, the sentiments of those soldiers who made that gallant but useless charge.

So it is with all instances of a like character. There are many more accounts of the elephant’s cowardice than of its courage, and it is notoriously untrustworthy in war. Some are braver than others, but as soon as we attempt to find out from the literature of this subject which are the bravest,--young or old, male or female, trained or untrained, wild or tame,--hopelessly contradictory statements crowd upon us from all sides. The highest, the most complete, the severest discipline this beast receives is in the hunting-field, and Colonel MacMaster expresses the general tenor of opinion upon its results in saying, “I have never known an elephant who could be depended upon for dangerous shooting.” As a class these animals are liable to panic, easily confused, and often become imbecile on account of nervous agitation. It is not uncommon to see a tusker fly screaming with fear from the skin of a tiger which he has seen taken off, or to have him bolt from its dead body when that is instantly recognized as harmless by the jungle crow, pea-fowl, or monkey. Being extremely afraid of bears for some unknown reason, and nearly idiotic when frightened, an elephant may attack the hunter who has just stepped off his back into a tree, thinking that he has been suddenly transformed into a brute of this kind. But from all appearances some of them like to hunt, and when well broken and in good health, their prompt and intelligent obedience, their display of natural powers of several kinds, and the firmness with which they confront danger and bear pain, are wonderful.

Neither the man on his back nor the elephant himself is by any means secure against fatal results when a tiger charges home. Shikar animals, nevertheless, often do everything that is required of them admirably. The difficulty is that the best elephants cannot be counted upon. A tusker, whose scars speak for themselves, is as likely as not, says Colonel MacMaster, “to bolt from a hare or small deer, or quake with fear when a partridge or pea-fowl rises under his trunk.”

The following narrative by Captain James Forsyth (“The Highlands of Central India”) illustrates some of the foregoing criticisms very well:--

“It was in 1853 that the two brothers N. and Colonel G. beat the covers” of Bétúl, near the village of Bhádúgaon, “for a family of tigers said to be in it. One of the brothers was posted in a tree, while G. and the other N. beat through on an elephant. The man in a tree first shot two of the tigers, and then Colonel G. saw a very large one lying in the shade of a bush and fired at it, on which it charged and mounted the elephant’s head. It was a small female elephant, and was terribly punished about the trunk and eyes in this encounter, though the mahout (a bold fellow named Rámzán, who was afterwards in my own service) battered the tiger’s head with his iron driving-hook so as to leave deep marks in the bones of his skull. At length he was shaken off, and retreated; but when the sportsmen urged in the elephant again, and the tiger charged as before, she turned round, and the tiger catching her by the hind leg fairly pulled her over on her side. My informant, who was in the howdah, said that for a time his arm was pinned between it and the tiger’s body, who was making efforts to pull the shikári out of the back seat. They were all, of course, spilt on the ground with their guns, and Colonel G., getting hold of one, made the tiger retreat with a shot in the chest. The elephant had fled from the scene of action, and the two sportsmen then went in at the beast on foot. It charged again, and when close-to them was finally dropped by a lucky shot in the head. But the sport did not end here, for they found two more tigers in the same cover immediately afterwards, and killed one of them, making four that day. The worrying she had received, however, was the death of the elephant, which was buried at Bhádúgaon,--one of the few instances on record of an elephant being actually killed by a tiger.”

There is no way in which the intellect, moral attributes, temper, receptive power, and adaptability of elephants can be decided upon en masse. An animal of this kind will tend his keeper’s infant with a solicitude which seems to justify all that has been said of his benevolence; he will also watch for an opportunity to kill its father with a patience and self-command that are more significant still. In the latter event the motive (hatred) displays itself, and the manner in which the design is carried out can be studied; but with respect to the determining causes of conduct in the first instance we know nothing. An intelligent animal has been told to do something which it understands, and does it to the best of its ability. That is all the facts warrant us in saying.

One way of estimating the degree of feeling in any case is to measure the actions that express it by what they cost the individual who performs them. An elephant’s opportunities for displaying self-abnegation can be but few, and most of those voluntary deeds upon which his reputation rests require little or no self-forgetfulness. In the hunting-field he is under coercion. A hunted elephant, however, is not in this position, and it is in its conduct that we notice such examples of this kind of behavior as may be regarded in the light of cases in point. Elephants--females most frequently--sometimes fight in defence of their associates when they themselves are not directly attacked. Both sexes have been occasionally known to give assistance to each other when they might have been killed in doing so. But for the most part they are very far from acting in this way. Fishes, reptiles, birds, together with a large number of land animals, have fully equalled elephants in everything they have done in this direction. Much has been said of the affection an elephant feels for the person who feeds and tends it, of the care, consideration, respect, and obedience it renders to a being whose superiority this amazing brute recognizes. Nevertheless, it is most probable that this individual had better be anywhere else than within reach of its trunk if there is a probability of the animal’s getting bogged, for the chances are that he will be buried beneath its feet for a support.

This is not said with the intention of disparaging those good qualities which elephants possess. It must be plain from what has gone before that nothing else was to be expected. Except in the way of patient dissimulation, it would be difficult to show that when these animals take to evil courses they display more ability in perpetrating crime than many others. The consequences of vice in them are apt to be serious, and thus attract attention; but so far as cunning, foresight, and invention are called into play, they do not distinguish themselves, and those tragedies with which their names are associated seem to be more particularly marked by violence, ferocity, and rapidity of execution. Furthermore, it is well known that cerebral structure in these species is not of a high type; and with regard to its organization we know nothing.

If we now follow this largest of game into its native haunts, and note those experiences by which its pursuit is attended, what has been said with reference to the habits and character of elephants will, in the main, be found to rest upon good evidence. The outlook will be quite different according to where the animals are found. In India elephants live almost altogether in forests, while in Africa this is not the case. A hunter on the “Dark Continent” may also ride; quite an advantage in escaping a charge, and also in following a beast who, when frightened, frequently goes forty miles at a stretch. Dogs can always divert this creature’s attention from the man who is about to kill him. The barking of a few curs about his feet never fails to make an enraged elephant forget the object of attack.

Sir Samuel Baker (“Wild Beasts and their Ways”) and Colonel Pollok (“Sport in British Burmah”) have described at length the most vulnerable points in the body and head, but sporting stories and details, except in so far as they illustrate temper and traits of character, are beside the purpose here. It may be said, however, that the forehead shot, so constantly made in India, cannot be resorted to with an African elephant. It has been tried a great many times, and there are only two or three instances on record where the animal has been killed. This is due to a difference of conformation in the skull, in the position of the brain, and to the manner in which this elephant holds its head in charging, says F. C. Selous (“Travel and Adventure in South East Africa”).

Without going into anatomical details, it may be said that an African is about a foot taller than an Indian elephant, his ears are much larger, his back is concave instead of convex, and the tusks are much heavier and longer. Their position in the jaw also differs; they converge in passing backwards and upwards into the massive processes in which they are set, so that their roots, and the masses of bone and cartilage which form their sockets, effectually protect the brain, which lies low behind the receding forehead.

Speaking of hunting on horseback, W. Knighton (“Forest Life in Ceylon”) mentioned it as a well-known fact that “the elephant has an antipathy towards a horse.” “A solitary traveller is perfectly safe while mounted” he remarks. To the best of the author’s knowledge and belief, the fact is directly the other way. Horses, until accustomed to their sight and odor, fear elephants, but the latter care nothing about them. They have never been known to hesitate in attacking hunters in the saddle. The Hamran and Baggara Arabs on the Upper Nile and its tributaries nearly always meet them in this manner. The only weapon used by these aggageers, or sword-hunters, is a long, heavy, sharp, double-edged Solingen blade. Three men generally hunt together, and their method of procedure shows how well they know the elephant’s character.

Having found the fresh spoor of an old bull whose tusks are presumably worth winning, they track it to its resting or feeding place, and approach with no other precaution than is necessary to keep their quarry from taking refuge in some mimosa thicket where their swords cannot be used. When possible, the animal, who appreciates the situation perfectly, and knows all about sword-hunters, always makes itself safe in that way. If no cover is within reach, the elephant backs up against a rock, a clump of bushes, bank, or anything that will guard it in the rear, and awaits its enemies with that peculiarly devilish expression of countenance an elephant wears when murderously inclined. Supposing the aggageers to be three in number, and mounted,--two of them close slowly in upon his flanks, while the third--the lightest weight, on the most active and best broken horse--gradually approaches in front. There stands the elephant with cocked ears and gleaming eyes, and the Arab slowly drawing nearer, sits in his saddle and reviles him. Finally, what the Hamrans or Baggaras knew from the first would happen actually takes place. The elephant forgets everything, and dashes forward to annihilate this little wretch who has been cursing and pitching pieces of dirt at him. Then the horse is whirled round, and keeping just out of reach of his trunk, its rider lures the enraged animal on. As soon as he starts, those riders on his quarters swoop down at full speed, and when the one on his left comes alongside, he springs to the ground, bounds forward, his sword flashes in the air, and all is over. The foot turns up in front, in consequence of cutting the tendon that keeps it in place, and its blood rapidly drains away through the divided vessels until the animal dies.