Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon Part 7

Sciurus macrurus, _Forst_.

Tennentii, _Layard_.

penicillatus. _Leach_.

trilineatus, _Waterh_.

Sciuropterus Layardi, _Kel_.

Pteromys petaurista, _Pall_.

Mus bandicota, _Bechst_.

Kok, _Gray_.

Mus rufescens. _Gray_.

nemoralis, _Blyth_.

Indicus, _Geoff_.

fulvidiventris, _Blyth_.

Nesoki _Hardwickii_, _Gray_.

Golunda Neuera, _Kelaart_.

Ellioti, _Gray_.

Gerbillus Indicus, _Hardw_.

Lepus nigricollis, _F. Cuv._ Hystrix leucurus, _Sykes_.

EDENTATA.

Manis pentadactyla, _Linn._

PACHYDERMATA.

Elephas Sumatra.n.u.s, _Linn._ Sus Indicus, _Gray_.

_Zeylonicus_, _Blyth_.

RUMINANTIA.

Moschus meminna, _Eral_.

Stylocerus muntjac, _Horsf_.

Axis maculata, _H. Smith_.

Rusa Aristotelis, _Cuv_.

CETACEA.

Halicore dugung, _F. Cuv._

CHAP. II.

THE ELEPHANT.

_Structure and Functions._

During my residence at Kandy, I had twice the opportunity of witnessing the operation on a grand scale, of capturing wild elephants, intended to be trained for the public service in the establishment of the Civil Engineer;--and in the course of my frequent journeys through the interior of the island, I succeeded in collecting so many facts relative to the habits of these interesting animals in a state of nature, as enable me not only to add to the information previously possessed, but to correct many fallacies popularly received regarding their instincts and disposition. These particulars I am anxious to place on record before proceeding to describe the scenes of which I was a spectator, during the progress of the elephant hunts in the district of the Seven Korles, at which I was present in 1846, and again in 1847.

With the exception of the narrow but densely inhabited belt of cultivated land, that extends along the seaborde of the island from Chilaw on the western coast to Tangalle on the south-east, there is no part of Ceylon in which elephants may not be said to abound; even close to the environs of the most populous localities of the interior. They frequent both the open plains and the deep forests; and their footsteps are to be seen wherever food and shade, vegetation and water[1], allure them, alike on the summits of the loftiest mountains, and on the borders of the tanks and lowland streams.

[Footnote 1: M. AD. PICTET has availed himself of the love of the elephant for water, to found on it a solution of the long-contested question as to the etymology of the word "elephant,"-a term which, whilst it has pa.s.sed into almost every dialect of the West, is scarcely to be traced in any language of Asia. The Greek [Greek: elephas], to which we are immediately indebted for it, did not originally mean the animal, but, as early as the time of Homer, was applied only to its tusks, and signified _ivory_. BOCHART has sought for a Semitic origin, and seizing on the Arabic _fil_, and prefixing the article _al_, suggests _alfil_, akin to [Greek: eleph]; but rejecting this, BOCHART himself resorts to the Hebrew _eleph_, an "ox"--and this conjecture derives a certain degree of countenance from the fact that the Romans, when they obtained their first sight of the elephant in the army of Pyrrhus, in Lucania, called it the _Luca bos_. But the [Greek: antos] is still unaccounted for; and POTT has sought to remove the difficulty by introducing the Arabic _hindi_, Indian, s thus making _eleph-hindi_, "_bos Indicus_." The conversion of _hindi_ into [Greek: antos] is an obstacle, but here the example of "tamarind" comes to aid; _tamar hindi_, the "Indian date," which in mediaeval Greek forms [Greek: tamarenti]. A theory of Benary, that helhephas might be compounded of the Arabic _al_, and _ibha_, a Sanskrit name for the elephant, is exposed to still greater etymological exception. PICTET'S solution is, that in the Sanskrit epics "the King of Elephants," who has the distinction of carrying the G.o.d Indra, is called _airarata_ or _airavana_, a modification of _airavanta_, "son of the ocean," which again comes from _iravat_, "abounding in water." "Nous aurions done ainsi, comme correlatif du gree [Greek: elephanto], une ancienne forme, _airavanta_ ou _ailavanta_, affaiblie plus tard en _airavata_ ou _airavana_.... On connait la predilection de l'elephant pour le voisinage des fleuves, et son amour pour l'eau, dont l'abondance est necessaire a son bien-etre." This Sanskrit name, PICTET supposes, may have been carried to the West by the Phoenicians, who were the purveyors of ivory from India; and, from the Greek, the Latins derived _elephas_, which pa.s.sed into the modern languages of Italy, Germany, and France.

But it is curious that the Spaniards acquired from the Moors their Arabic term for ivory, _marfil_, and the Portuguese _marfim_; and that the Scandinavians, probably from their early expeditions to the Mediterranean, adopted _fill_ as their name for the elephant itself, and _fil-bein_ for ivory; in Danish, _fils-ben_. (See _Journ. Asiat._ 1843, t. xliii. p. 133.) The Spaniards of South America call the palm which produces the vegetable ivory (_Phytelephas macrocarpa_) _Palma de marfil_, and the nut itself, _marfil vegetal_.

Since the above was written Gooneratne Modliar, the Singhalese Interpreter to the Supreme Court at Colombo, has supplied me with another conjecture, that the word elephant may possibly be traced to the Singhalese name of the animal, _alia_, which means literally, "the huge one." _Alia_, he adds, is not a derivation from Sanskrit or Pali, but belongs to a dialect more ancient than either.]

From time immemorial the natives have been taught to capture and tame them and the export of elephants from Ceylon to India has been going on without interruption from the period of the first Punic War.[1] In later times all elephants were the property of the Kandyan crown; and their capture or slaughter without the royal permission was cla.s.sed amongst the gravest offences in the criminal code.

[Footnote 1: aeLIAN, _de Nat. Anim._ lib. xvi. c. 18; COSMAS INDICOPL., p. 128.]

In recent years there is reason to believe that their numbers have become considerably reduced. They have entirely disappeared from localities in which they were formerly numerous[1]; smaller herds have been taken in the periodical captures for the government service, and hunters returning from the chase report them to be growing scarce. In consequence of this diminution the peasantry in some parts of the island have even suspended the ancient practice of keeping watchers and fires by night to drive away the elephants from their growing crops.[2] The opening of roads and the clearing of the mountain forests of Kandy for the cultivation of coffee, have forced the animals to retire to the low country, where again they have been followed by large parties of European sportsmen; and the Singhalese themselves, being more freely provided with arms than in former times, have a.s.sisted in swelling the annual slaughter.[3]

[Footnote 1: LE BRUN, who visited Ceylon A.D. 1705, says that in the district round Colombo, where elephants are now never seen, they were then so abundant, that 160 had been taken in a single corral. (_Voyage_, &c., tom. ii. ch. lxiii. p. 331.)]

[Footnote 2: In some parts of Bengal, where elephants were formerly troublesome (especially near the wilds of Ramgur), the natives got rid of them by mixing a preparation of the poisonous Nepal root called _dakra_ in b.a.l.l.s of grain, and other materials, of which the animal is fond. In Cuttack, above fifty years ago, mineral poison was laid for them in the same way, and the carcases of eighty were found which had been killed by it. (_Asiat. Res._, xv. 183.)]

[Footnote 3: The number of elephants has been similarly reduced throughout the south of India.]

Had the motive that incites to the destruction of the elephant in Africa and India prevailed in Ceylon, that is, had the elephants there been provided with tusks, they would long since have been annihilated for the sake of their ivory.[1] But it is a curious fact that, whilst in Africa and India both s.e.xes have tusks[2], with some slight disproportion in the size of those of the females: not one elephant in a hundred is found with tusks in Ceylon, and the few that possess them are exclusively males. Nearly all, however, have those stunted processes called _tushes_, about ten or twelve inches in length and one or two in diameter. These I have observed them to use in loosening earth, stripping off bark, and snapping asunder small branches and climbing plants; and hence tushes are seldom seen without a groove worn into them near their extremities.[3]

[Footnote 1: The annual importation of ivory into Great Britain alone, for the last few years, has been about _one million_ pounds; which, taking the average weight of a tusk at sixty pounds, would require the slaughter of 8,333 male elephants.

But of this quant.i.ty the importation from Ceylon has generally averaged only five or six hundred weight; which, making allowance for the lightness of the tusks, would not involve the destruction of more than seven or eight in each year. At the same time, this does not fairly represent the annual number of tuskers shot in Ceylon, not only because a portion of the ivory finds its way to China and to other places, but because the chiefs and Buddhist priests have a pa.s.sion for collecting tusks, and the finest and largest are to be found ornamenting their temples and private dwellings. The Chinese profess that for their exquisite carvings the ivory of Ceylon excels all other, both in density of texture and in delicacy of tint; but in the European market, the ivory of Africa, from its more distinct graining and other causes, obtains a higher price.]

[Footnote 2: A writer in the _India Sporting Review_ for October 1857 says, "In Malabar a tuskless male elephant is rare; I have seen but two."--p. 157.]

[Footnote 3: The old fallacy is still renewed, that the elephant sheds his tusks. aeLIAN says he drops them once in ten years (lib. xiv. c. 5): and PLINY repeats the story, adding that, when dropped, the elephants hide them under ground (lib. viii.) whence SHAW says, in his _Zoology_, "they are frequently found in the woods," and exported from Africa (vol.

i. p. 213): and Sir W. JARDINE in the _Naturalist's Library_ (vol. ix.

p. 110), says, "the tusks are shed about the twelfth or thirteenth year." This is erroneous: after losing the first pair, or, as they are called, the "milk tusks," which drop in consequence of the absorption of their roots, when the animal is extremely young, the second pair acquire their full size, and become the "permanent tusks," which are never shed.]

Amongst other surmises more ingenious than sound, the general absence of tusks in the elephant of Ceylon has been a.s.sociated with the profusion of rivers and streams in the island; whilst it has been thrown out as a possibility that in Africa, where water is comparatively scarce, the animal is equipped with these implements in order to a.s.sist it in digging wells in the sand and in raising the juicy roots of the mimosas and succulent plants for the sake of their moisture. In support of this hypothesis, it has been observed, that whilst the tusks of the Ceylon species, which are never required for such uses, are slender, graceful and curved, seldom exceeding fifty or sixty pounds' weight, those of the African elephant are straight and thick, weighing occasionally one hundred and fifty, and even three hundred pounds.[1]

[Footnote 1: Notwithstanding the inferiority in weight of the Ceylon tusks, as compared with those of the elephant of India, it would, I think, be precipitate to draw the inference that the size of the former was uniformly and naturally less than that of the latter. The truth, I believe to be, that if permitted to grow to maturity, the tusks of the one would, in all probability, equal those of the other; but, so eager is the search for ivory in Ceylon, that a tusker, when once observed in a herd, is followed up with such vigilant impatience, that he is almost invariably shot before attaining his full growth. General DE LIMA, when returning from the governors.h.i.+p of the Portuguese settlements at Mozambique, told me, in 1848, that he had been requested to procure two tusks of the largest size, and straightest possible shape, which were to be formed into a cross to surmount the high altar of the cathedral at Goa: he succeeded in his commission, and sent two, one of which was 180 pounds, and the other 170 pounds' weight, with the slightest possible curve. In a periodical, ent.i.tled _The Friend_, published in Ceylon, it is stated in the volume for 1837 that the officers belonging to the s.h.i.+ps Quorrah and Alburhak, engaged in the Niger Expedition, were shown by a native king two tusks, each two feet and a half in circ.u.mference at the base, eight feet long, and weighing upwards of 200 pounds. (Vol. i.

p. 225.) BRODERIP, in his _Zoological Recreations_, p. 255, says a tusk of 350 pounds' weight was sold at Amsterdam, but he does not quote his authority.]

But it is manifestly inconsistent with the idea that tusks were given to the elephant to a.s.sist him in digging for his food, to find that the females are less bountifully supplied with them than the males, whilst the necessity for their use extends equally to both s.e.xes. The same argument serves to demonstrate the fallacy of the conjecture, that the tusks of the elephant were given to him as weapons of offence, for if such were the case the vast majority in Ceylon, males as well as females, would be left helpless in presence of an a.s.sailant. But although in their conflicts with one another, those which are provided with tusks may occasionally push with them clumsily at their opponents; it is a misapprehension to imagine that tusks are designed specially to serve "in warding off the attacks of the wily tiger and the furious rhinoceros, often securing the victory by one blow which transfixes the a.s.sailant to the earth."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c._, published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. i. p. 68: "The Elephant," ch. iii.

It will be seen that I have quoted repeatedly from this volume, because it is the most compendious and careful compilation with which I am acquainted of the information previously existing regarding the elephant. The author incorporates no speculations of his own, but has most diligently and agreeably arranged all the facts collected by his predecessors. The story of antipathy between the elephant and rhinoceros is probably borrowed from aeLIAN _de Nat._, lib. xvii. c. 44.]

So harmless and peaceful is the life of the elephant, that nature appears to have left it unprovided with any weapon of offence: its trunk is too delicate an organ to be rudely employed in a conflict with other animals, and although on an emergency it may push or gore with its tusks (to which the French have hastily given the term "_defenses_"), their almost vertical position, added to the difficulty of raising its head above the level of the shoulder, is inconsistent with the idea of their being designed for attack, since it is impossible for the elephant to strike an effectual blow, or to "wield" its tusks as the deer and the buffalo can direct their horns. Nor is it easy to conceive under what circ.u.mstances an elephant could have a hostile encounter with either a rhinoceros or a tiger, with whose pursuits in a state of nature its own can in no way conflict.

Towards man elephants evince shyness, arising from their love of solitude and dislike of intrusion; any alarm they exhibit at his appearance may be reasonably traced to the slaughter which has reduced their numbers; and as some evidence of this, it has always been observed that an elephant exhibits greater impatience of the presence of a white man than of a native. Were its instincts to carry it further, or were it influenced by any feeling of animosity or cruelty, it must be apparent that, as against the prodigious numbers that inhabit the forests of Ceylon, man would wage an unequal contest, and that of the two one or other must long since have been reduced to a helpless minority.