Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon Part 9

The _olfactory lobes_, from which the olfactory nerves proceed, are large, whilst the _optic and muscular nerves of the orbit are singularly small_ for so vast an animal; and one is immediately struck by the prodigious size of the fifth nerve, which supplies the proboscis with its exquisite sensibility, as well as by the great size of the motor portion of the seventh, which supplies the same organ with its power of movement and action.]

The elephant's small range of vision is sufficient to account for its excessive caution, its alarm at unusual noises, and the timidity and panic exhibited at trivial objects and incidents which, imperfectly discerned, excite suspicions for its safety.[1] In 1841 an officer[2]

was chased by an elephant that he had slightly wounded. Seizing him near the dry bed of a river, the animal had its forefoot already raised to crush him; but 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; leaving him badly hurt, but with no limb broken. I have heard similar instances, equally well attested, of this peculiarity in the elephant.

[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," p. 27.]

[Footnote 2: Major ROGERS. An account of this singular adventure will be found in the _Ceylon Miscellany_ for 1842, vol. i. p. 221.]

On the other hand, the power of smell is so remarkable as almost to compensate for the deficiency of sight. A herd is not only apprised of the approach of danger by this means, but when scattered in the forest, and dispersed out of range of sight, they are enabled by it to rea.s.semble with rapidity and adopt precautions for their common safety.

The same necessity is met by a delicate sense of hearing, and the use of a variety of noises or calls, by means of which elephants succeed in communicating with each other upon all emergencies. "The sounds which they utter have been described by the African hunters as of three kinds: the first, which is very shrill, produced by blowing through the trunk, is indicative of pleasure; the second, produced by the mouth, is expressive of want; and the third, proceeding from the throat, is a terrific roar of anger or revenge."[1] These words convey but an imperfect idea of the variety of noises made by the elephant in Ceylon; and the shrill cry produced by blowing through his trunk, so far from being regarded as an indication of "pleasure," is the well-known cry of rage with which he rushes to encounter an a.s.sailant. ARISTOTLE describes it as resembling the hoa.r.s.e sound of a "trumpet."[2] The French still designate the proboscis of an elephant by the same expression "trompe,"

(which we have unmeaningly corrupted into _trunk_,) and hence the scream of the elephant is known as "trumpeting" by the hunters in Ceylon. Their cry when in pain, or when subjected to compulsion, is a grunt or a deep groan from the throat, with the proboscis curled upwards and the lips wide apart.

[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, "The Elephant," ch. iii. p. 68.]

[Footnote 2: ARISTOTLE, _De Anim_., lib. iv. c. 9. "[Greek: h.o.m.oion salpingi]." See also PLINY, lib. x. ch. cxiii. A ma.n.u.script in the British Museum, containing the romance of "_Alexander_" which is probably of the fifteenth century, is interspersed with drawings ill.u.s.trative of the strange animals of the East. Amongst them are two elephants, whose trunks are literally in form of _trumpets with expanded mouths_. See WRIGHT'S _Archaeological Alb.u.m_, p. 176.]

Should the attention of an individual in the herd be attracted by any unusual appearance in the forest, the intelligence is rapidly communicated by a low suppressed sound made by the lips, somewhat resembling the twittering of a bird, and described by the hunters by the word "_prut_."

A very remarkable noise has been described to me by more than one individual, who has come unexpectedly upon a herd during the night, when the alarm of the elephants was apparently too great to be satisfied with the stealthy note of warning just described. On these occasions the sound produced resembled the hollow booming of an empty tun when struck with a wooden mallet or a m.u.f.fled sledge. Major MACREADY, Military Secretary in Ceylon in 1836, who heard it by night amongst the wild elephants in the great forest of Bintenne, describes it as "a sort of banging noise like a cooper hammering a cask;" and Major SKINNER is of opinion that it must be produced by the elephant striking his sides rapidly and forcibly with his trunk. Mr. CRIPPS informs me that he has more than once seen an elephant, when surprised or alarmed, produce this sound by striking the ground forcibly with the flat side of the trunk; and this movement was instantly succeeded by raising it again, and pointing it in the direction whence the alarm proceeded, as if to ascertain by the sense of smell the nature of the threatened danger. As this strange sound is generally mingled with the bellowing and ordinary trumpeting of the herd, it is in all probability a device resorted to, not alone for warning their companions of some approaching peril, but also for the additional purpose of terrifying unseen intruders.[1]

[Footnote 1: PALLEGOIX, in his _Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam_, adverts to a sound produced by the elephant when weary: "quand il est fatigue, _il frappe la terre avec sa_ trompe, et en tire un son semblable a celui du cor."--Tom. i. p. 151.]

Elephants are subject to deafness; and the Singhalese regard as the most formidable of all wild animals, a "rogue"[1] afflicted with this infirmity.

[Footnote 1: For an explanation of the term "rogue" as applied to an elephant, see p. 115.]

Extravagant estimates are recorded of the height of the elephant. In an age when popular fallacies in relation to him were as yet uncorrected in Europe by the actual inspection of the living animal, he was supposed to grow to the height of twelve or fifteen feet. Even within the last century in popular works on natural history, the elephant, when full grown, was said to measure from seventeen to twenty feet from the ground to the shoulder.[1] At a still later period, so imperfectly had the facts been collated, that the elephant of Ceylon was believed "to excel that of Africa in size and strength."[2] But so far from equalling the size of the African species, that of Ceylon seldom exceeds the height of nine feet; even in the Hambangtotte country, where the hunters agree that the largest specimens are to be found, the tallest of ordinary herds do not average more than eight feet. WOLF, in his account of the Ceylon elephant[3], says he saw one taken near Jaffna, which measured twelve feet and one inch high. But the truth is, that the general bulk of the elephant so far exceeds that of the animals which we are accustomed to see daily, that the imagination magnifies its unusual dimensions; and I have seldom or ever met with an inexperienced spectator who did not unconsciously over-estimate the size of an elephant shown to him, whether in captivity or in a state of nature.

Major DENHAM would have guessed some which he saw in Africa to be sixteen feet in height, but the largest when killed was found to measure nine feet six, from the foot to the hip-bone.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Natural History of Animals_. By Sir JOHN HILL, M.D.

London, 1748-52, p. 565. A probable source of these false estimates is mentioned by a writer in the _Indian Sporting Review_ for Oct. 1857.

"Elephants were measured formerly, and even now, by natives, as to their height, by throwing a rope over them, the ends brought to the ground on each side, and half the length taken as the true height. Hence the origin of elephants fifteen and sixteen feet high. A rod held at right angles to the measuring rod, and parallel to the ground, will rarely give more than ten feet, the majority being under nine."--P. 159.]

[Footnote 2: SHAW'S _Zoology_. Lond. 1806. vol. i. p. 216; ARMANDI, _Hist. Milit. des Elephans_, liv. i. ch. i. p. 2.]

[Footnote 3: WOLF'S _Life and Adventures, &c_., p. 164. Wolf was a native of Mecklenburg, who arrived in Ceylon about 1750, as chaplain in one of the Dutch East Indiamen, and having been taken into the government employment, he served for twenty years at Jaffna, first as Secretary to the Governor, and afterwards in an office the duties of which he describes to be the examination and signature of the "writings which served to commence a suit in any of the Courts of justice." His book embodies a truthful and generally accurate account of the northern portion of the island, with which alone he was conversant, and his narrative gives a curious insight into the policy of the Dutch Government, and of the condition of the natives under their dominion.]

[Footnote 4: DENHAM'S _Travels, &c_., 4to p. 220. The fossil remains of the Indian elephant have been discovered at Jabalpur, showing a height of fifteen feet.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng_. vi. Professor ANSTED in his _Ancient World_, p. 197, says he was informed by Dr. Falconer "that out of eleven hundred elephants from which the tallest were selected and measured with care, on one occasion in India, there was not one whose height equalled eleven feet."]

For a creature of such extraordinary weight it is astonis.h.i.+ng how noiselessly and stealthily the elephant can escape from a pursuer. When suddenly disturbed in the jungle, it will burst away with a rush that seems to bear down all before it; but the noise sinks into absolute stillness so suddenly, that a novice might well be led to suppose that the fugitive had only halted within a few yards of him, when further search will disclose that it has stolen silently away, making scarcely a sound in its escape; and, stranger still, leaving the foliage almost undisturbed by its pa.s.sage.

The most venerable delusion respecting the elephant, and that which held its ground with unequalled tenacity, is the ancient fallacy which is explained by SIR THOMAS BROWNE in his _Pseudodoxia Epidemica_, that "it hath no joynts; and this absurdity is seconded by another, that being unable to lye downe it sleepeth against a tree, which the hunters observing doe saw almost asunder, whereon the beast relying, by the fall of the tree falls also downe it-selfe and is able to rise no more."[1]

Sir THOMAS is disposed to think that "the hint and ground of this opinion might be the grosse and somewhat cylindricall composure of the legs of the elephant, and the equality and lesse perceptible disposure of the joynts, especially in the forelegs of this animal, they appearing, when he standeth, like pillars of flesh;" but he overlooks the fact that PLINY has ascribed the same peculiarity to the Scandinavian beast somewhat resembling a horse, which he calls a "machlis,"[2] and that CaeSAR in describing the wild animals in the Hercynian forests, enumerates the _alce_, "in colour and configuration approaching the goat, but surpa.s.sing it in size, its head dest.i.tute of horns _and its limbs of joints_, whence it can neither lie down to rest, nor rise if by any accident it should fall, but using the trees for a resting-place, the hunters by loosening their roots bring the _alce_ to the ground, so soon as it is tempted to lean on them."[3] This fallacy, as Sir THOMAS BROWNE says, is "not the daughter of latter times, but an old and grey-headed errour, even in the days of ARISTOTLE," who deals with the story as he received it from CTESIAS, by whom it appears to have been embodied in his lost work on India. But although ARISTOTLE generally receives the credit of having exposed and demolished the fallacy of CTESIAS, it will be seen by a reference to his treatise _On the Progressive Motions of Animals_, that in reality he approached the question with some hesitation, and has not only left it doubtful in one pa.s.sage whether the elephant has joints _in his knee_, although he demonstrates that it has joints in the shoulders[4]; but in another he distinctly affirms that on account of his weight the elephant cannot bend his forelegs together, but only one at a time, and reclines to sleep on that particular side.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Vulgar Errors_, book iii. chap. 1.]

[Footnote 2: Machlis (said to be derived from _a_, priv., and [Greek: klino], _cubo_, quod non cubat). "Moreover in the island of Scandinavia there is a beast called _Machlis_, that hath neither ioynt in the hough, nor pasternes in his hind legs, and therefore he never lieth down, but sleepeth leaning to a tree, wherefore the hunters that lie in wait for these beasts cut downe the trees while they are asleepe, and so take them; otherwise they should never be taken, they are so swift of foot that it is wonderful."--PLINY, _Natur. Hist._ Transl. Philemon Holland, book viii. ch. xv. p. 200.]

[Footnote 3: "Sunt item quae appellantur _Alces_. Harum est consimilis capreis figura, et varietas pellium; sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt, mutilaeque sunt cornibus, _et crura sine nodis articulisque habent_; neque quietis causa proc.u.mbunt; neque, si quo afflictae casu considerunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus; ad eas sese applicant, atque ita, paulum modo reclinatae, quietem capiunt, quarum ex vestigiis c.u.m est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consueverint, omnes eo loco, aut a radicibus subruunt aut accidunt arbores tantum, ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc c.u.m se consuetudine reclinaverint, infirmas arbores pondere affligunt, atque una ipsae concidunt."--CaeSAR, _De Bello Gall_. lib. vi. ch. xxvii.

The same fiction was extended by the early Arabian travellers to the rhinoceros, and in the MS. of the voyages of the "_Two Mahometans_" it is stated that the rhinoceros of Sumatra "n'a point d'articulation au genou ni a la main."--_Relations des Voyages, &c._, Paris, 1845, vol. i.

p. 29.]

[Footnote 4: When an animal moves progressively an hypothenuse is produced, which is equal in power to the magnitude that is quiescent, and to that which is intermediate. But since the members are equal, it is necessary that the member which is quiescent should be inflected either in the knee or in the incurvation, _if the animal that walks is without knees_. It is possible, however, for the leg to be moved, when not inflected, in the same manner as infants creep; and there is an ancient report of this kind about elephants, which is not true, for such animals as these, _are moved in consequence of an inflection taking place either in their shoulders or hips_."--ARISTOTLE, _De Ingressu Anim._, ch. ix. Taylor's Transl.]

[Footnote 5: ARISTOTLE, _De Animal_., lib. ii. ch. i. It is curious that Taylor, in his translation of this pa.s.sage, was so strongly imbued with the "grey-headed errour," that in order to elucidate the somewhat obscure meaning of Aristotle, he has actually interpolated the text with the exploded fallacy of Ctesias, and after the word reclining to sleep, has inserted the words "_leaning against some wall or tree_," which are not to be found in the original.]

So great was the authority of ARISTOTLE, that aeLIAN, who wrote two centuries later and borrowed many of his statements from the works of his predecessor, perpetuates this error; and, after describing the exploits of the trained elephants exhibited at Rome, adds the expression of his surprise, that an animal without joints ([Greek: anarthron]) should yet be able to dance.[1] The fiction was too agreeable to be readily abandoned by the poets of the Lower Empire and the Romancers of the middle ages; and PHILE, a contemporary of PETRARCH and DANTE, who in the early part of the fourteenth century, addressed his didactic poem on the elephant to the Emperor Andronicus II., untaught by the exposition of ARISTOTLE, still clung to the old delusion,

[Greek: "Podes de toutps thauma kai saphes teras, Ous, ou kathaper talla ton zoon gene, Eiothe kinein ex anarthron klasmaton, Kai gar stibarois syntethentes osteois, Kai te pladara ton sphyron katastasei, Kai te pros arthra ton skelon hypokrisei, Nyn eis tonous agousi, nyn eis hypheseis, Tas pantodapas ekdromas tou theriou.

Brachyterous ontas de ton opisthion 'Anamphilektos oida tous emprosthious Toutois elephas entatheis osper stylois 'Orthostaden akamptos hypnotton menei."]

v. 106, &c.

[Footnote 1: [Greek: "Zpson de anarthron sunienai kai rhuthmou kai melous, kai phylattein schema physeos dora tauta hama kai idiotes kath'

ekaston ekplektike]."--aeLIAN, _De Nat. Anim_., lib. ii. cap. xi.]

SOLINUS introduced the same fable into his _Polyhistor_; and DICUIL, the Irish commentator of the ninth century, who had an opportunity of seeing the elephant sent by Haroun Alraschid as a present to Charlemagne[1] in the year 802, corrects the error, and attributes its perpetuation to the circ.u.mstance that the joints in the elephant's leg are not very apparent, except when he lies down.[2]

[Footnote 1: Eginhard, _Vita Karoli_, c. xvi. and _Annales Francorum_, A.D. 810.]

[Footnote 2: "Sed idem Julius, unum de elephantibus mentions, falso loquitur; dicens elephantem nunquam jacere; dum ille sicut bos certissime jacet, ut populi communiter regni Francorum elephantem, in tempore Imperatoris Karoli viderunt. Sed, forsitan, ideo hoc de elephante ficte aestimando scriptum est, eo quod genua et suffragines sui nisi quando jacet, non palam apparent."--DICUILUS, _De Mensura Orbis Terrae_, c. vii.]

It is a strong ill.u.s.tration of the vitality of error, that the delusion thus exposed by Dicuil in the ninth century, was revived by MATTHEW PARIS in the thirteenth; and stranger still, that Matthew not only saw but made a drawing of the elephant presented to King Henry III. by the King of France in 1255, in which he nevertheless represents the legs as without joints.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Cotton MSS_. NERO. D. 1. fol. 168, b.]

In the numerous mediaeval treatises on natural history, known under the t.i.tle of _Bestiaries_, this delusion regarding the elephant is often repeated; and it is given at length in a metrical version of the _Physiologus_ of THEOBALDUS, amongst the Arundel Ma.n.u.scripts in the British Museum.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Arundel MSS_. No. 292, fol. 4, &c. It has been printed in the _Reliquiae Antiquae_, vol. i. p. 208, by Mr. WRIGHT, to whom I am indebted for the following rendering of the pa.s.sage referred to:--

in water ge sal stonden in water to mid side that wanne hire harde tide that ge ne falle nither nogt that it most in hire thogt for he ne haven no lith that he mugen risen with, etc.

"They will stand in the water, in water up to the middle of the side, that when it comes to them hard, they may not fall down: that is most in their thought, for they have no joint to enable them to rise again.

How he resteth him this animal, when he walketh abroad, hearken how it is here told.

For he is all unwieldy, forsooth he seeks out a tree, that it strong and stedfast, and leans confidently against it, when he is weary of walking.

The hunter has observed this, who seeks to ensnare him, where his usual dwelling is, to do his will; saws this tree and props it in the manner that he best may, covers it well that he (the elephant) may not be on his guard.

Then he makes thereby a seat, himself sits alone and watches whether his trap takes effect.

Then cometh this unwieldy elephant, and leans him on his side, rests against the tree in the shadow, and so both fall together.

If n.o.body be by when he falls, he roars ruefully and calls for help, roars ruefully in his manner, hopes he shall through help rise.

Then cometh there one (elephant) in haste, hopes he shall cause him to stand up; labours and tries all his might, but he cannot succeed a bit.

He knows then no other remedy, but roars with his brother, many and large (elephants) come there in search, thinking to make him get up, but for the help of them all he may not get up.

Then they all roar one roar, like the blast of a horn or the sound of bell, for their great roaring a young one cometh running, stoops immediately to him, puts his snout under him, and asks the help of them all; this elephant they raise on his legs: and thus fails this hunter's trick, in the manner that I have told you."]

With the Provencal song writers, the helplessness of the fallen elephant was a favourite simile, and amongst others RICHARD DE BARBEZIEUX, in the latter half of the twelfth century, sung[1],

"Atressi c.u.m l'olifans Que quan chai no s'pot levar."