St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1886-04-17
r war dance round the carcass.

'nlSger was sent up the nearest cocoa
nut and we quaffed beaker to the
pleasant passage of Jumbo soul to the
elephants heaven. Shooting an ele-
phant IN herd and shooting rogue
elephant are two very different things.
In the first place, as have said, you
are not allowed to shoot an elephant in
Il herd under penalty of two hundred
and fifty dollars. the Government using
all they can catch for the Public Works
Department. This is as it should be,
for. before the law was established,
there was wholesale slaughter among
the noble beasts. 1t was nothing but
pot hunting. as the hunter would lie
in wait where the herd went to water
and then pick them off at his leisure,
and, As Ceylon elephants have no tusks
it was done in mere wantonness.
Major Rogers, of the Ceylon Rifles,
was famous elephant shot in his day.
and he was credited with having slain
with his own gun over twelve hundred
elephants This / believe to be well
authenticated tact. He once made a
bet that he would kill two elephants
with one shot. The way he did it was
to shoot the mother when the young
elephant was sucking her. and the
mother falling on her young one
crushed it to death.
elephants are caught in what are
known rs kraals. They are caught
either for use i'm the Public Works De-
partment. for service in the native
temples. for sale to some European
menagerie. When kraal is to be
| formed word is sent to the native head
man of the village near where the
kraal Is to be built, and he, in his turn,
sends out hundreds of beaters. When
the herd to be operated on is located
the beaterS form Il semi-clrcle and begin
driving the animal slowly toward the
kraal. At night they build watch fires.
and between bem the native patrol.
armed With white wands, which are
quite sufficient to keep the elephants
from breaking through. They gradu-
ally work them up toward the kraal.
which Is an open space in the jungle
with some stout trees growing within
1t. 1t Is surrounded by q strong stock
ade and has only a narrow entrance.
Into this the herd is driven. The herd
is generally led by an old bull elephant.
and before any attempt to capture an
elephant is made this old gentleman
must be shot. When the Duke OF Edih-
burgh visited the island a kraal was
gotten up for his especial benefit. and
H. r. H. entered the kraal to shoot the
bull. but he missed and the bull very
nearly did away with young Guelph.
In fact he was right on him when
timely shot. fired by Il native sitting
up a tree and armed with an old
flint musket. brought the bulls
career to an end The bull got rid Of,
the next thing to do is to send in two
tame elephants, with their mahouts.
who single out the elephant to be capt
ured. The tame ones then 'scuddle
up. one on each side, and profess great
friendship for their wild companion,
gradually pressing him or her closer and
closer until they have him fast. Then a
native slips i'm underneath and quickly
makes ropes fast to the wild one legs,
and he is dragged by the tame ele-
phants to the nearest tree. where, after
being thrown to the ground. he is se-
curely bound and left there to starve
for two or three days. He is then quite
tame. and when he rises up he il no
longer monarch of the forest but ele
phant No. 800 of the Public Works De-
partment, or the great Jumbo of a trav-
cling circus.
'.The sagacity of elephants is pro-
verbal. but few who have not person.
ally witnessed it can imagine how USE
full they are TO man in such places as
Ceylon. Without their aid it would
have been impossible for the Govern
ment to have covered the island. as 1t
has done. with splendid network of
roads and railways. In some places il
would have been impossible to have
transported machinery, and without
hosting machinery the great blocks of
stone used IN the foundations and but
tresses Of bridges could not have been
moved-but here the elephant came
into play. and. 1 have seen the
noble beast at work on the
roads, moving great block of
stone into position and standing
back and eyeing it, and then giving it
a gentle push. now on one side and now
on the other. until the stone was cor
rectly placed. An officer of the de-
partment told me that the most sa-
gacious thing he ever knew an ele-
phant to do was on one occasion when
they were unloading some steel piping
from railway truck. The elephants
task was to carry the piping from be-
side the truck to little farther up the
track. This he did by seizing the
piping with his trunk But it so hap
pened that the piping had been oiled in
order to prevent it rusting, SO that when
the elephant caught hold it slipped
from his grasp. He thought for mo-
ment. and then his elephantine mind
solved the problem. Near the track
was heap of sand: the animal kicked
the piping over to this with his foot.
and then rolled the piping backward
and forward in the sand. The oil made
the sand adhere, after which the ele-
phant took the piping up and marched
triumphantly off with it. Could a
human being reason better? No won-
der the Government objects to such an
intelligent animal being indiscriminate-
ly slaughtered.
Elephants are also in great demand
in Ceylon for service in the Buddhist
temples. Every temple has at least
half dozen attached to it. and in some
of the larger temples, such as the one
in Handy. where the sacred tooth of
Buddha Is deposited, they have as many
As fifty. The largest number of ele-
phants l ever saw together was when