The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1873-11-22
ELEPHANTS.

lleved to play prominent part i'll reviews
Durbars, and other solemn pageants il
which Oriental magnificence is seen side by
side with British symmetry and order
Most Englishmen are aware that consid
cradle number of the tigers annually slain
in our Indian dependency are shot by
sportsmen securely seated in howdahs on
the backs of elepants; but these useful
beasts are employed for many domestic
purposes, and are often maintaied all over
India by native gentlemen who never faced
a tiger or handled a gun in all their lives.
Landholders and English gentlemen en-
gagged in commercial or agricultural pur-
suits in the interior of the country find
such animal to be well worth his keep in
many ways. 1t brings in the collections of
rent from an out-station to headquarters.
1t takes important letters or supplies right
across the country. 1t will carry half a
dozen servants, with bed, baggage, and
cooking apparatus, to any place where
these adjuncts or necessaries cannot be
relied on. 1t enables the native agents of
against accidents or robbery. Where roads
had not been constructed, or are impassa-
bic for vehicles during the rainy season,
the elephant is equal to any emergency.
To swim rivers, to skirt or wade through
swamps, to step cleverly over fences, to
fray a path through reeds, to break down
forest trees firmly connected by long trail
ing creepers is comparatively easy task
to this sagacious, powerful, and obedient
servant. 1t is true that three or four
miles an hour is the average rate of pro-
gress, and that it is hardly fair to exact of
an animal more than fifteen or twenty
miles Of march in the day. 1t must be
admitted, too, that practice is necessary to
accustom the traveller to the motion and
| that the PAGES of all elephants are not the
same. Some are so smooth as almost to
invite slumber; on others the unlucky occu-
pant of the cushion rolls about as at sea,
and arrives at his journeys end with sore
pains in all his joints. But the docility of
the beast and the security of this mode of
munication is not essential, of the very
| greatest convenience to residents in the
plains. The owner of an elephant has, be-
sides, a far greater guaratee of respecta-
bility than the owner of gig. 1t is not
to be imagined, however, that elephants
cost nothing or can prosper without care
and attendance. A prudent person will
guard his elephat from the deluge of a
tropical rain, and to this end high-roofed
barn must be constructed, with open sides,
large enough to admit something of the
size of an ordinary haystack. Then the
bath is as indispensable to the elephat as
it was to an old Roman or good break
fast to the juryman of Dickens; and after
a daily plunge and swim, during which
nothing is seen of the animal but the tip
of his trunk, it lays down on its side at
signal from the driver, and submits to be
oiled, cleaned, and brushed, while thorns
or foreign substances are extracted from
the toes. When these operations are con-
cluded, chain is fastened round one hind
leg and made secure to post or tree, and
the remainder of the day is passed by the
elephat in celebrating the traces of the
bath by showers of dust or in driving
away the flies with a leafy branch. The
food generally consists of several pounds
of coarse rice, the stem of plantain tree,
and whole cart load of tender branches,
recently cut. To procure this latter sup
ply is the daily duty of one of the attend
ants, who in Indian phraseology is termed
ga mate the title of Mahout being re-
served for the head keeper. Not every
kind of a leaf is palatable, and whole
tracts of country covered with forest trees
are absolutely useless for the feeding of
elephants. When on march or in jun
giles elephants will endeavor to feed all day
and will snatch at anything edible.
Formerly, in the Gangetic Delta an ele-
plant, with its two attendants, cost little
more than 60 a month. The amount is
now fully double, and in other and dryer
parts Of India, where forage is scarce, it
reaches the high figure of GO or 81. Ele-
plants are also very liable to be disabled
by sore feet or to get out of condition.
Thorns, stumps, and stones cause lacera-
ton and lameness; sores and ulcers arise
| from neglect or carelessness in fitting on
the howdah; and internal disorders are
betrayed by the animal itself, which liter
ally consumes Jumps of earth to show that
it needs a purgative.
Sportsmen accustomed to the jungles
we'll know that there are only two or three
places where shot is effective. Either
the charge of the animal must be awaited,
and the aim must be taken at the hollow
just above the trunk; or, if the sportsman
has not GOODNESS enough for this venture,
a side shot through the eye will do equally
as we'll. More than forty years ago the
elephant that went mad on Exeter Change
exhausted something like barrowful of
bullets before he could be destroyed, the
assailants being ether ignorant of the vital
part, OF being unable to catch the animal
in the necessary position. 1t is we'll known
that the late Major Rogers had killed some
twelve hundred wild elephants in the jun
giles of Ceylon, and rarely failed in dis
patching his victim at one shot. But
then he had thoroughly studied the habits
of the animal, whether single or in herds,
was a firstrate shot, and had the assist
ance of native so cool and daring as to
be able to walk up to herd and pull the
tail of an unsuspecting beast, which, in
consequence, looked around and presented
favorable shot to the experienced sports
man.
Elephants live, it is generally believed,
to the age of hundred or hundred and
twenty years, and average six to seven feet
I in height. The price of a docile elephant
| varies from $50 or e70 to e12O. An ele-
plant of nine, ten, or eleven feet is rare,
but is magnificent to behold. There are
few sights more in harmony with an East
ern landscape than line of some fifteen
or twenty elephants waiting by the side of
some well-known cover for the signal to
| commence operations or than the solitary