The Arizona sentinel., 1886-05-22
SENSIBLE BRUTES.
The Huge Elephant Quickly Sees
 That Man Is His Master.
Insanity a Scourge of the Mammoth World-The "Rogues''-The Career and Final Death of the Terror
 of the Poonasy Hills.

and Final Death of the Terror
 of the Poonasy Hills.
 It is the firm conviction of the writer that of all the animals which man has either domesticated or made captive, the lordly elephant is the most intelligent, obedient and good-tempered. '1t is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, '" but old elephants are easier to tame and teach than the young ones. When a wild herd is entrapped in a keddah, and the captives are tied one by one and led away, it is the oldest elephants who learn soonest that mind is superior to brute force, and that the wisest way is to yield gracefully to the inevitable.
 Most wild animals that are captured in an adult state are for a long time in 8 state of extreme terror, or else eX- treme rage, and it is very seldom that such a subject yields to teaching. With the elephant, however, its tuition begins with its capture. In from three to six months the wild and lawless denizen of the jungle is transformed into patient, steady-going beast of burden, who does his best to perform his tasks properly and intelligently, and very rarely gives cause for complaint.
 But the elephant, like his human mas ter, and also animals of many other spe- cies, is subject to insanity. Old ami mals, especially males, are now and then attacked by temporary fits called must" partly due in some cases to lack of sufficient exercise, but oftener by reason of the natural visitation of this painful malady upon the elephant. An insane elephant, either in a fit of must or permanently mad, is the incarnation of destructiveness. The attack of must will pass off in few days, or at most a few weeks, during which time the afflicted animal is kept securely chained, and deprived of the power to do mis- chief. An animal which, from any cause, becomes permanently mad, is too dangerous to be permitted to live, and all such are shot as quickly as possible. 1t not unfrequently happens, however. that an insane elephant gets free, and kills number of people before he is killed
 AS rule, wild elephants are inoffen- sive, peace-loving animals, far more ready to flee than to fight, and never at tack people in pure wontonness. Neither are they disposed to destroy property, save now and then to pull fimsy na- tive hut to pieces in a spirit of innocent mischief, as a herd once did for me when on brief absence from my camp afTelli- cul, in the Animallai Hills. Occasion ally wild male elephant becomes soli- tary wanderer, either a compulsory or voluntary outcast from his herd Such individuals are usually supposed to have violated the laws of the herd, and ren- dered necessary their forcible expulsion. Whatever may be the causes which bring about this social ostracism, the solitary animal is almost invariably found possessed of a very bad temper, and his propensity for the wholesale destruction of property and human life speedily earns for him the title of ''rogue."
 A rogue elephant, :" therefore, in the parlance of the Indian native and the British sportsman, is a solitary male out cast of tiendish temper, who kills people or bullocks whenever he can catch them, destroys crops, huts and vehicles, and is himself to be destroyed as speedily as possibly. My belief is that all such ele- plants are really insane, or else are maddened by the pain of acute diseases, or gun-shot wounds similar to one I saw in the head of famous rogue. A heavy ball had been fired by some bungling hunter into the base of an elephants right tusk, shatterlng the ivory and driving jagged splinters into the sensi- tive medullary pulp and the flesh of the lip. It must have caused exquisite pain, but, like human toothache, it could not kill. No wonder that elephant be- came a rogue.
 The presence of a pronounced rogue elephant is a terror to the natives of his vicinity, and is so fraught with danger to human life, that the Government al- ways grants a liberal reward to the hunter who is plucky enough to hunt the dangerous beast and skillful enough to kill him. 1 know of no sport more dangerous serious business to be called ''sport," let me assure you-than the pursuit of blood-thirsty elephant, who is as ready to attack the hunter as the latter is to attack him. It is St. George and the dragon in modern flesh and blood.
 Perhaps there has never lived in all Southern India a more wicked elephant than the PoOnasy rogue, so called from the fact that his depredations were com mitted on the Poonasy hill, near Kol- legal, in the Coimbatoor district. So far as can be ascertained, he began his career of blood in the alambaddy ked- dah. or elephant-pen, few years ago, when famous drive was made, and he was captured, with about sixty others. On finding himself entrapped, he at tackled the stockade with great fury and persistence. To repel him, the guards on the outside fired, and tried to kill him. The attack with firearms drove him from the stockade, but did not kill. Maddened by the pain of his wounds, he attacked the other captives with his tusks, and killed nineteen of