THE
WILD ELEPHANT.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
THE
WILD ELEPHANT
AND
THE METHOD OF CAPTURING
AND TAMING IT IN
CEYLON.
BY
SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT, Bart.
K.C.S. LL.D. F.R.S. &c.
AUTHOR OF “CEYLON, AN ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND,
PHYSICAL, HISTORICAL, AND TOPOGRAPHICAL,”
ETC.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1867.
TO
MY INTELLIGENT COMPANION
IN MANY OF THE JOURNEYS THROUGHOUT THE MOUNTAINS AND
FORESTS OF CEYLON, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH MUCH
OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS
VOLUME WAS COLLECTED;
TO
MAJOR SKINNER,
CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF ROADS AND PUBLIC WORKS,
ETC., ETC.
ONE OF THE MOST EXPERIENCED AND VALUABLE SERVANTS OF
THE CROWN;
IT IS INSCRIBED,
IN THE HOPE THAT IT MAY RECALL TO HIM THE
PLEASANT MEMORIES WHICH IT
AWAKES IN ME.
PREFACE.
In this volume, the chapters descriptive of the structureand habits of the wild elephant are reprinted for thesixth time from a larger work,1 published originally in1859. Since the appearance of the First Edition, manycorrections and much additional matter have beensupplied to me, chiefly from India and Ceylon, and willbe found embodied in the following pages.
To one of these in particular I feel bound to directattention. In the course of a more enlarged essay on thezoology of Ceylon,2 amongst other proofs of a geologicalorigin for that island, distinct from that of theadjacent continent of India, as evidenced by peculiaritiesin the flora and fauna of each respectively, I had occasionto advert to a discovery which had been recently announcedviiiby Temminck in his Survey of the Dutch possessionsin the Indian Archipelago,3 that the elephant whichabounds in Sumatra (although unknown in the adjacentisland of Java), and which had theretofore been regardedas identical in species with the Indian one, has beenfound to possess peculiarities, in which it differs as muchfrom the elephant of India as the latter does from itsAfrican congener. On this new species, to which thenatives give the name of “gadjah,” Temminck hasconferred the scientific designation of the Elephas Sumatranus.The points which entitle it to this distinctionhe enumerates minutely in the work4 be