The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wild Elephant , by Sir J. Emerson Tennent.

67 Menageries, etc. “The Elephant,” ch. i.

Sir Charles Bell, in his essay on The Hand and its Mechanism, which forms one of the “Bridgewater Treatises,” has exhibited the reasons deducible from organisation, which show the incapacity of the elephant to spring or leap like the horse and other animals whose structure is designed to facilitate agility and speed. In them the various bones of the shoulder and fore limbs, especially the clavicle and humerus, are set at such an angle, that the shock in descending is modified, and the joints and sockets protected from the injury occasioned by concussion. But in the elephant, where the weight of the body is immense, the bones of the leg, in order to present solidity and strength to sustain it, are built in one firm and perpendicular column; instead of being placed somewhat obliquely at their points of contact. Thus whilst the force of the weight in descending is broken and distributed by this arrangement in the case of the horse; it would be so concentrated in the elephant as to endanger every joint from the toe to the shoulder.

68 Menageries, etc. “The Elephant,” ch. ii.

69 Dr. Hooker, in describing the ascent of the Himalayas, says, the natives in making their paths despise all zigzags, and run in straight lines up the steepest hill faces; whilst “the elephant’s path is an excellent specimen of engineering—the opposite of the native track,—for it winds judiciously.” (Himalayan Journal, vol. i. ch. iv.)

70 Ceylon Observer, March 1865.

71 Since the above passage was written, I have seen in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xiii. pt. ii. p. 916, a paper upon this subject, illustrated by the subjoined diagram.

The writer says, “an elephant descending a bank of too acute an angle to admit of his walking down it direct, (which, were he to attempt, his huge body, soon disarranging the centre of gravity, would certainly topple over,) proceeds thus. His first manœuvre is to kneel down close to the edge of the declivity, placing his chest to the ground: one fore leg is then cautiously passed a short way down the slope; and if there is no natural protection to afford a firm footing, he speedily forms one by stamping into the soil if moist, or kicking out a footing if dry. This point gained, the other fore leg is brought down in the same way; and performs the same work, a little in advance of the first; which is thus at liberty to move lower still. Then, first one and then the second of the hind legs is carefully drawn over the side, and the hind feet in turn occupy the resting-places previously used and left by the fore ones. The course, however, in such precipitous ground is not straight from top to bottom, but slopes along the face of the bank, descending till the animal gains the level below. This an elephant has done, at an angle of 45 degrees, carrying a howdah, its occupant, his attendant, and sporting apparatus; and in a much less time than it takes to describe the operation.” I have observed that an elephant in descending a declivity uses his knees, on the side next the bank; and his feet on the lower side only.

72 A correspondent of Buffon, M. Marcellus Bles, Seigneur de Moergestal, who resided eleven years in Ceylon in the time of the Dutch, says in one of his communications, that in herds of forty or fifty, enclosed in a single corral, there were frequently very young calves; and that “on ne pouvoit pas reconnoître quelles étoient les mères de chacun de ces petits éléphans, car tous ces jeunes animaux paroissent faire manse commune; ils têtent indistinctement celles des femelles de toute la troupe qui ont du lait, soit qu’elles aient elles-mêmes un petit en propre, soit qu’elles n’en aient point.” (Buffon, Suppl. à l’Hist. des Anim. vol. vi. p. 25.)

73 White, in his Natural History of Selbourne, philosophising on the fact which had fallen under his own notice of this indiscriminate suckling of the young of one animal by the parent of another, is disposed to ascribe it to a selfish feeling; the pleasure and relief of having its distended teats drawn by this intervention. He notices the circumstance of a leveret having been thus nursed by a cat, whose kittens had been recently drowned; and observes that “this strange affection was probably occasioned by that desiderium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss of her kittens had awakened in her breast; and by the complacency and ease she derived to herself from procuring her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended with milk; till from habit she became as much delighted with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which grave historians, as well as the poets, assert of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus in their infant state should be nursed by a she wolf than that a poor little suckling leveret should be fostered and cherished by a bloody Grimalkin.” (White’s Selborne, lett. xx.) General Sleaman in his narrative of a journey through Oude gives some remarkable narratives of children suckled by wolves and found associating with their cubs.

74 The term “rogue” is scarcely sufficiently accounted for by supposing it to be the English equivalent for the Singhalese word Hora. In that very curious book, the Life and Adventures of John Christopher Wolf, late principal Secretary at Jaffnapatam in Ceylon, see ante, note, p. 31, the author says, when a male elephant in a quarrel about the females “is beat out of the field and obliged to go without a consort, he becomes furious and mad, killing every living creature, be it man or beast; and in this state is called ronkedor, an object of greater terror to a traveller than a hundred wild ones.” (P. 142.) In another passage, p. 164, he is called runkedor, and I have seen it spelt elsewhere ronquedue. Wolf does not give “ronkedor” as a term peculiar to that section of the island; but both there and elsewhere, it is obsolete at the present day, unless it be open to conjecture that the modern term “rogue” is a modification of ronquedue.

75 Buchanan, in his Survey of Bhagulpore, p. 503, says that solitary males of the wild buffalo, “when driven from the herd by stronger competitors for female society, are reckoned very dangerous to meet with; for they are apt to wreak their vengeance on whatever they meet, and are said to kill annually three or four people.” Livingstone relates the same of the solitary hippopotamus, which becomes soured in temper, and wantonly attacks the passing canoes. (Travels in South Africa, p. 231.)

76 Letter from Major Skinner.

77 This peculiarity was known in the middle ages, and Phile, writing in the fourteenth century, says, that such is his preference for muddy water that the elephant stirs it before he drinks.

Ὕδωρ δὲ πίνει συγχυθὲν πρὶν ἂν πίνοι,
Τὸ γὰρ διειδὲς ἀκριβῶς διαπτύει.
Phile de Eleph. i. 144.

78 A tame elephant, when taken by his keepers to be bathed, and to have his skin washed and rubbed, lies down on his side, pressing his head to the bottom under water, with only the top of his trunk protruded, to breathe.

79 Broderip’s Zoological Recreations, p. 259.

80 For observing the osteology of the elephant, materials are of course abundant in the indestructible remains of the animal: but the study of the intestines, and the dissection of the softer parts by comparative anatomists in Europe, have been up to the present time beset by difficulties. These arise not alone from the rarity of subjects, but even in cases where elephants have died in these countries, decomposition interposes, and before the thorough examination of so vast a body can be satisfactorily completed, the great mass falls into putrefaction.

The principal English authorities are An Anatomical Account of the Elephant accidentally burnt in Dublin, by A. Molyneux, A.D. 1696; which is probably a reprint of a letter on the same subject in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, addressed by A. Moulin to Sir William Petty, Lond. 1682. There are also some papers communicated to Sir Hans Sloane, and afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions of the year 1710, by Dr. P. Blair, who had an opportunity of dissecting an elephant which died at Dundee in 1708. The latter writer observes that, “notwithstanding the vast interest attaching to the elephant in all ages, yet has its body been hitherto very little subjected to anatomical inquiries;” and he laments that the rapid decomposition of the carcase, and other causes, had interposed obstacles to the scrutiny of the subject he was so fortunate as to find access to.

In 1723 Dr. Wm. Stuckley published Some Anatomical Observations made upon the Dissection of an Elephant; but each of the above essays is necessarily unsatisfactory, and little has since been done to supply their defects. One of the latest and most valuable contributions to the subject, is a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy, on the 18th of Feb. 1847, by Professor Harrison, who had the opportunity of dissecting an Indian elephant which died of acute fever; but the examination, so far as he has made it public, extends only to the cranium, the brain, and the proboscis, the larynx, trachea, and œsophagus. An essential service would be rendered to science if some sportsman in Ceylon, or some of the officers connected with the elephant establishment there, would take the trouble to forward the carcase of a young one to England in a state fit for dissection.

Postscriptum.—I am happy to say that a young elephant, carefully preserved in spirits, has recently been obtained in Ceylon, and forwarded to Prof. Owen, of the British Museum, by the joint exertions of M. Diard and Major Skinner. An opportunity has thus been afforded of which science will reap the advantage, of devoting a patient attention to the internal structure of this most interesting animal.

81 Aristotle noticed a peculiarity in the intestinal configuration of the elephant such as gave it the appearance of having four stomachs. De Anim. Hist. l; ii. c. 17.

82 The passage as quoted by Buffon from the Mémoires is as follows:—“L’estomac avoit peu de diamètre; il en avoit moins que le colon, car son diamètre n’étoit que de quatorze pouces dans la partie la plus large; il avoit trois pieds et demi de longueur: l’orifice supérieur étoit à peu près aussi éloigné du pylore que du fond du grand cul-de-sac qui se terminoit en une pointe composée de tuniques beaucoup plus épaisses que celles du reste de l’estomac; il y avoit au fond du grand cul-de-sac plusieurs feuillets épais d’une ligne, larges d’un pouce et demi, et disposés irrégulièrement; le reste des parois intérieures étoit percé de plusieurs petits trous et par de plus grands qui correspondoient à des grains glanduleux.” (Buffon, Hist. Nat. vol. xi. p. 109.)

83 “L’extrémité voisine du cardiaque se termine par une poche très-considérable et doublée à l’intérieure de quatorze valvules orbiculaires qui semblent en faire une espèce de division particulière.” (Camper, Description anatomique d’un Eléphant mâle, p. 37, tabl. IX.)

84 “The elephant has another peculiarity in the internal structure of the stomach. It is longer and narrower than that of most animals. The cuticular membrane of the œsophagus terminates at the orifice of the stomach. At the cardiac end, which is very narrow and pointed at the extremity, the lining is thick and glandular, and is thrown into transverse folds, of which five are broad and nine narrow. That nearest the orifice of the œsophagus is the broadest, and appears to act occasionally as a valve, so that the part beyond may be considered as an appendage similar to that of the peccary and the hog. The membrane of the cardiac portion is uniformly smooth; that of the pyloric is thicker and more vascular.” (Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, by Sir Everard Home, Bart. 4to. Lond. vol. i. p. 155. The figure of the elephant’s stomach is given in his Lectures, vol. ii. plate xviii.)

85 A similar arrangement, with some modifications, has more recently been found in the llama of the Andes, which, like the camel, is used as a beast of burden in the Cordilleras of Chili and Peru; but both these and the camel are ruminants, whilst the elephant belongs to the Pachydermata.

86 Proceed. Roy. Irish. Acad. vol. iv. p. 133.

87 Ayeen Akbery, transl. by Gladwin, vol. i. pt. i. p. 147.

88 One of the Indian names for the elephant is duipa, which signifies “to drink twice.” (Amandi, p. 513.) Can this have reference to the peculiarity of the stomach for retaining a supply of water? Or has it merely reference to the habit of the animal to fill his trunk before transferring the water to his mouth?

89 The buffalo and the humped cattle of India, which are used for draught and burden, have, I believe, a development somewhat more conspicuous than in the rest of their congeners, of the organisation of the reticulum which enables the ruminants generally to endure thirst, and abstain from water, but nothing in them approaches in singularity of character to the distinct cavities in the stomach exhibited by the three animals above alluded to.

90 For an explanation of this term, see Sir J. Emerson Tennent’s Ceylon, etc. vol. i. p. 498.

91 “One of the strongest instincts which the elephant possesses, is this which impels him to experiment upon the solidity of every surface which he is required to cross.”—Menageries, etc. “The Elephant,” vol. i. pp. 17, 19, 66.

92 Wolf’s Life and Adventures, p. 151.

93 Private Letter from Dr. Davy, author of An Account of the Interior of Ceylon.

94 The Colombo Observer for March 1858, contains an offer of a reward of twenty-five guineas for the destruction of an elephant which infested the Rajawallé coffee plantation, in the vicinity of Kandy. Its object seemed to be less the search for food, than the satisfying of its curiosity and the gratification of its passion for mischief. Mr. Tytler, the proprietor, states that it frequented the jungle near the estate, whence it was its custom to sally forth at night for the pleasure of pulling down buildings and trees, “and it seemed to have taken a spite at the pipes of the waterworks, the pillars of which it several times broke down—its latest fancy being to wrench off the taps.” This elephant has since been shot.

95 Cuvier, Règne Animal. “Les Mammifères,” p. 280.

96 Table Talk, p. 63.

97 The elephant is believed by the Singhalese to express his uneasiness by his voice, on the approach of rain; and the Tamils have a proverb,—“Listen to the elephant, rain is coming.”

98 Yokes borne on the shoulder with a package at each end.

99 The tutelary spirit of the sacred mountain, Adam’s Peak.

100 The Singhalese hold the belief, that twigs taken from one bush and placed on another growing close to a pathway, ensure protection to travellers from the attacks of wild animals, and especially of elephants. Can it be that the latter avoid the path, on discovering this evidence of the proximity of recent passengers?

101 A rogue elephant.

103 The figured cloth worn by men.

104 To persons like myself, who are not addicted to what is called “sport,” the statement of these wholesale slaughters is calculated to excite surprise and curiosity as to the nature of a passion that impels men to self-exposure and privation, in a pursuit which presents nothing but the monotonous recurrence of scenes of blood and suffering. Sir S. Baker, who has recently published, under the title of “The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon,” an account of his exploits in the forest, gives us the assurance that “all real sportsmen are tender-hearted men, who shun cruelty to an animal, and are easily moved by a tale of distress,” and that although man is naturally bloodthirsty, and a beast of prey by instinct, yet that the true sportsman is distinguished from the rest of the human race by his “love of nature and of noble scenery.” In support of this pretension to a gentler nature than the rest of mankind, the author proceeds to attest his own abhorrence of cruelty by narrating the sufferings of an old hound, which, although “toothless,” he cheered on to assail a boar at bay, but the poor dog recoiled “covered with blood, cut nearly in half, with a wound fourteen inches in length, from the lower part of the belly, passing up the flank, completely severing the muscles of the hind leg, and extending up the spine; his hind leg having the appearance of being nearly off.” In this state, forgetful of the character he had so lately given of the true sportsman, as a lover of nature and a hater of cruelty, he encouraged “the poor old dog,” as he calls him, to resume the fight with the boar, which lasted for an hour, when he managed to call the dogs off; and, perfectly exhausted, the mangled hound crawled out of the jungle with several additional wounds, including a severe gash in his throat. “He fell from exhaustion, and we made a litter with two poles and a horsecloth to carry him home.” (P. 314.) If such were the habitual enjoyments of this class of sportsmen, their motiveless massacres would admit of no manly justification. In comparison with them one is disposed to regard almost with favour the exploits of a hunter like Major Rogers, who is said to have applied the value of the ivory obtained from his encounters towards the purchase of his successive regimental commissions, and had, therefore, an object, however disproportionate, in his slaughter of 1,400 elephants.

One gentleman in Ceylon, not less distinguished for his genuine kindness of heart, than for his marvellous success in shooting elephants, avowed to me that the eagerness with which he found himself impelled to pursue them had often excited surprise in his own mind; and although he had never read the theory of Lord Kames, or the speculations of Vicesimus Knox, he had come to the conclusion that the passion thus excited within him was a remnant of the hunter’s instinct, with which man was originally endowed to enable him, by the chase, to support existence in a state of nature, and which, though rendered dormant by civilisation, had not been utterly eradicated.

This theory is at least more consistent and intelligible than the “love of nature and scenery,” sentimentally propounded by the author quoted above.

105 The vulnerability of the elephant in this region of the head was known to the ancients, and Pliny, describing a combat of elephants in the amphitheatre at Rome, says, that one was slain by a single blow, “pilum sub oculo adactum, in vitalia capitis venerat.” (Lib. viii. c. 7.) Notwithstanding the comparative facility of access to the brain afforded at this spot, an ordinary leaden bullet is not certain to penetrate, and frequently becomes flattened. The hunters, to counteract this, are accustomed to harden the ball, by the introduction of a small portion of type-metal along with the lead.

106 “The head is so peculiarly formed that the ball either passes over the brain, or lodges in the immensely solid bones and cartilages that contain the roots of the tusks.... The brain of the African species, he says, rests upon a plate of bone exactly above the roots of the upper grinders and is thus wonderfully protected from a front shot, as it lies so low that the ball passes over it when the elephant raises his head, which he invariably does when in anger, until close to the object of his attack.... I had always held the opinion that the African elephant might be killed with the same facility as that of Ceylon by a forehead shot; but I have found by much experience that I was entirely wrong and that although by chance an African elephant may be killed by the front shot, it is the exception to the rule.” (The Albert Nyanza, vol. i. p. 277.)

107 In Mr. Gordon Cumming’s account of a Hunter’s Life in South Africa, there is a narrative of his pursuit of a wounded elephant which he had lamed by lodging a ball in its shoulder-blade. It limped slowly towards a tree, against which it leaned itself in helpless agony, whilst its pursuer seated himself in front of it, in safety, to boil his coffee, and observe its sufferings. The story is continued as follows:—“Having admired him for a considerable time, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points; and approaching very near I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar action. Surprised and shocked at finding that I was only prolonging the sufferings of the noble beast, which bore its trials with such dignified composure, I resolved to finish the proceeding with all possible despatch, and accordingly opened fire upon him from the left side, aiming at the shoulder. I first fired six shots with the two-grooved rifle, which must have eventually proved mortal. After which I fired six shots at the same part with the Dutch six-pounder. Large tears now trickled from his eyes, which he slowly shut and opened, his colossal frame shivered convulsively, and falling on his side, he expired.” (Vol. ii. p. 10.)

In another place, after detailing the manner in which he assailed a poor animal, he says: “I was loading and firing as fast as could be, sometimes at the head, sometimes behind the shoulder, until my elephant’s fore-quarter was a mass of gore; notwithstanding which he continued to hold on, leaving the grass and branches of the forest scarlet in his wake.... Having fired thirty-five rounds with my two-grooved rifle, I opened upon him with the Dutch six-pounder, and when forty bullets had perforated his hide, he began for the first time to evince signs of a dilapidated constitution.” The disgusting description is closed thus: “Throughout the charge he repeatedly cooled his person with large quantities of water, which he ejected from his trunk over his sides and back, and just as the pangs of death came over him, he stood trembling violently beside a thorn tree, and kept pouring water into his bloody mouth until he died, when he pitched heavily forward with the whole weight of his fore-quarters resting on the points of his tusks. The strain was fair, and the tusks did not yield; but the portion of his head in which the tusks were embedded, extending a long way above the eye, yielded and burst with a muffled crash.” (Ib. vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.)

108 The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon; by Sir S. Baker, pp. 8, 9. “Next to a rogue in ferocity, and even more persevering in the pursuit of her victim, is a female elephant.” But he appends the significant qualification, “when her young one has been killed.” (Ibid. p. 13.)

109 The Rifle and the Hound, p. 13.

110 Menageries etc. “The Elephant,” ch. i. p. 21.

111 System of Phrenology, by Geo. Combe, vol. i. p. 256.

112 Private letter from Capt. Philip Payne Gallwey.

113 Some years ago an elephant which had been wounded by a native, near Hambangtotte, pursued the man into the town, followed him along the street, trampled him to death in the bazaar before a crowd of terrified spectators, and succeeded in making good its retreat to the jungle.

114 Shaw, in his Zoology, asserts that an elephant can run as swiftly as a horse can gallop. London, 1800-6, vol. i. p. 216.

115 The device of taking them by means of pitfalls still prevails in India; but in addition to the difficulty of providing against that caution with which the elephant is supposed to reconnoitre suspicious ground, it has the further disadvantage of exposing him to injury from bruises and dislocations in his fall. Still it was the mode of capture employed by the Singhalese, and so late as 1750 Wolf relates that the native chiefs of the Wanny, when capturing elephants for the Dutch, made “pits some fathoms deep in those places whither the elephant is wont to go in search of food, across which were laid poles covered with branches and baited with the food of which he is fondest, making towards which he finds himself taken unawares. Thereafter being subdued by fright and exhaustion, he was assisted to raise himself to the surface by means of hurdles and earth, which he placed underfoot as they were thrown down to him, till he was enabled to step out on solid ground, when the noosers and decoys were in readiness to tie him up to the nearest tree.” (See Wolf’s Life and Adventures, p. 152.) Shakspeare appears to have been acquainted with the plan of taking elephants in pitfalls: Decius, encouraging the conspirators, reminds them of Cæsar’s taste for anecdotes of animals, by which he would undertake to lure him to his fate:

“For he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betrayed with trees,
And bears with glasses: elephants with holes.”
Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Scene I.

116 Knox’s Historical Relation of Ceylon, A. D. 1681, part i. ch. vi. p. 21.

117 Previous to the death of the female elephant in the Zoological Gardens, in the Regent’s Park, in 1851, Mr. Mitchell, the Secretary, caused measurements to be accurately made, and found the statement of the Singhalese hunters to be strictly correct, the height at the shoulders being precisely twice the circumference of the fore foot. In an African elephant killed by Sir S. Baker, this proportion did not hold good, as the circumference of the fore foot was 4 feet 11-1/4 inches, and the height at the shoulder 10 feet 6-1/2 inches. (Baker, The Albert Nyanza, vol. ii. p. 10.)

118 Major Skinner, the Chief Officer at the head of the Commission of Roads, in Ceylon, in writing to me, mentions an anecdote illustrative of the daring of the Panickeas. “I once saw,” he says, “a very beautiful example of the confidence with which these fellows, from their knowledge of the elephants, meet their worst defiance. It was in Neuera-Kalawa; I was bivouacking on the bank of a river, and had been kept out so late that I did not get to my tent until between 9 and 10 at night. On our return towards it we passed several single elephants making their way to the nearest water, but at length we came upon a large herd that had taken possession of the only road by which we could pass, and which no intimidation would induce to move off. I had some Panickeas with me; they knew the herd, and counselled extreme caution. After trying every device we could think of for a length of time, a little old Moorman of the party came to me and requested we should all retire to a distance. He then took a couple of chules (flambeaux of dried wood, or coco-nut leaves), one in each hand, and waving them above his head till they flamed out fiercely, he advanced at a deliberate pace to within a few yards of the elephant who was acting as leader of the party, and who was growling and trumpeting in his rage, and flourished the flaming torches in his face. The effect was instantaneous; the whole herd dashed away in a panic, bellowing, screaming, and crushing through the underwood, whilst we availed ourselves of the open path to make our way to our tents.”

119 In the Philosophical Transactions for 1701, there is “An Account of the taking of Elephants in Ceylon, by Mr. Strachan, a Physician who lived seventeen years there,” in which the author describes the manner in which they were shipped by the Dutch, at Matura, Galle, and Negombo. A piece of strong sail-cloth having been wrapped round the elephant’s chest and stomach he was forced into the sea between two tame ones, and there made fast to a boat. The tame ones then returned to land, and he swam after the boat to the ship, where tackle was reeved to the sail-cloth, and he was hoisted on board.

“But a better way has been invented lately,” says Mr. Strachan; “a large flat-bottomed vessel is prepared, covered with planks like a floor; so that this floor is almost of a height with the key. Then the sides of the key and the vessel are adorned with green branches, so that the elephant sees no water till he is in the ship.” (Phil. Trans. vol. xxiii. No. 227, p. 1051.)

120 Valentyn, Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, ch. xv. p. 272.

121 It is thus spelled by Wolf, in his Life and Adventures, p. 144. Corral is at the present day a household word in South America, and especially in La Plata, to designate an enclosure for cattle.

122 See Sir J. Emerson Tennent’s Ceylon vol. I. pt. III. ch. xii. p. 415.

123 Another enormous mass of gneiss is called the Kuruminiagalla, or the Beetle-rock, from its resemblance in shape to the back of that insect, and hence is said to have been derived the name of the town, Kuruna-galle or Korne-galle.

124 Forbes quotes a Tamil conveyance of land, the purchaser of which is to “possess and enjoy it as long as the sun and the moon, the earth and its vegetables, the mountains and the River Cauvery exist.” (Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. chap. ii.) It will not fail to be observed, that the same figure was employed in Hebrew literature as a type of duration—“They shall fear thee, so long as the sun and moon endure; throughout all generations.” (Psalm lxxii. 5, 17.)

125 Pentaptera paniculata.

126 Entada pursætha.

127 Fire, the sound of a horn, and the grunting of a boar are the three things which the Greeks, in the middle ages, believed the elephant specially to dislike:

Πῦρ δὲ πτοεῖται καὶ κριὸν κερασφόρον,
Καὶ τῶν μονιῶν τὴν βοὴν τὴν ἀθρόαν.
Phile, Expositio de Elephante, 1. 177.

128 The other elephant, a fine tusker, which belonged to Dehigam Raté-mahat-meya, continued in extreme excitement throughout all the subsequent operations of the capture, and at last, after attempting to break its way into the corral, shaking the bars with its forehead and tusks, it went off in a state of frenzy into the jungle. A few days after the Aratchy went in search of it with a female decoy, and watching its approach, sprang fairly on the infuriated beast, with a pair of sharp hooks in his hands, which he pressed into tender parts in front of the shoulder, and thus held the elephant firmly till chains were passed over its legs, and it permitted itself to be led quietly away.