THE ELEPHANT.

    Love of Solitude, and Pusillanimity—Miraculous Escape of an English Officer—Sagacity of the Elephant in ascending Hills—Organisation of the Stomach—The Elephant’s Trunk—Use of the Tusks still Problematical—The Rogue-Elephant—Sagacity of the Elephant—The African Elephant—Tamed in Ancient Times—South African Elephant-Hunting—Hair-breadth Escapes—Abyssinian Elephant-Hunters—Cutting-up of an Elephant—The Asiatic Elephant—Vast Numbers destroyed in Ceylon—Major Rogers—Elephant-Catchers—Their amazing Dexterity—The Corral—Decoy Elephants—Their astonishing Sagacity—Great Mortality among the Captured Elephants—Their Services.

Of a mild and peaceful disposition, the image of strength tempered by good nature, the Elephant loves the shady forest and the secluded lake. Disliking the glare of the midday sun, he spends the day in the thickest woods, devoting the night to excursions and to the luxury of the bath, his great and innocent delight. Though the earth trembles under his strides, yet, like the whale, he is timid; but this timidity is accounted for by his small range of vision. Anything unusual strikes him with terror, and the most trivial objects and incidents, from being imperfectly discerned, excite his suspicions. To this peculiarity an English officer, chased and seized by an elephant432 which he had slightly wounded, owed his almost miraculous escape. The animal had already raised its fore-foot to trample him to death, when, its forehead being caught at the instant by the tendrils of a climbing plant which had suspended itself from the branches above, it suddenly turned and fled.37 An instinctive consciousness that his superior bulk exposes him to danger from sources that might be harmless in the case of lighter animals, is probably the reason why the elephant displays a remarkable reluctance to face the slightest artificial obstruction on his passage. Even when enraged by a wound, he will hesitate to charge his assailant across an intervening hedge, suspecting it may conceal a snare. Unlike the horse, he never gets accustomed to the report of fire-arms, and thus no longer plays an active part in battle as in the times of Pyrrhus and Hannibal, but serves in a modern campaign merely as a common beast of burden, or for the transport of heavy artillery.

To make up for his restricted vision, his neck being so formed as to render him incapable of directing the range of his eye much above the level of his head, he is endowed with a remarkable power of smell, and a delicate sense of hearing, which serve to apprise him of the approach of danger.

Although, from their huge bulk, the elephants might be supposed to prefer a level country, yet, in Asia at least, the regions where they most abound are all hilly and mountainous. In Ceylon, particularly, there is not a range so high as to be inaccessible to them, and so sure-footed are they that, provided there be solidity to sustain their weight, they will climb rocks, and traverse ledges where even a mule dare not venture.

Dr. Hooker admired the judicious winding of the elephant’s path in the Himalayas, and Sir J. ............