Читать книгу The Elephant Keeper - Christopher Nicholson - Страница 8
ОглавлениеI WAS born, the older of two children, in the village of Thornhill, Somersetshire, in the year of our Lord 1753. My father was head groom to Mr. John Harrington, a sugar merchant, who owned half a dozen ships trading out of the city of Bristol; these had brought him such wealth that he had acquired an estate, comprising some two thousand acres of farms and woodland. Mr. Harrington was very fond of riding over his land, and maintained a stable comprising some ten horses. From a very young age, it may be no more than two or three, I used to leave my mother’s side and accompany my father as he walked from the village to the stables. I loved the warmth of the stables and the sweet smells of straw and dung, and I loved the horses, with their soft noses and large ears and intelligent eyes. I thought of the horses as my friends, and gave them names. There was one mare, a roan with a white blaze on her head, whom I named Star-light; I used to kiss her muzzle and talk to her, telling her stories that I supposed might amuse her, and she would prick her ears and appear to listen. I loved her greatly and persuaded myself that she loved me in return—imagining, even, that I was not a human being but a horse. One summer’s evening, when I may have been six years of age, I fell asleep against her body in the straw, which caused a great alarm in my family, my mother and father passing a sleepless night in the belief that I had been stolen by gypsies, as happened occasionally in those days. When I was discovered, they did not know whether to be pleased or angry.
From this, you may draw the conclusion that I grew up a solitary boy, but I had the company of other children in Thornhill and Gillerton, and also of my younger brother, Jim, and we often played together round the stables. However, of the horses in Mr. Harrington’s stables, six were cart-horses, two hunters, and two hackneys, that is, road-horses, and while the carthorses were placid, heavy beasts, the hunters and hackneys had some thorough-bred in them and their tempers were far less certain. One of the hunters in particular, a big bay gelding, had a very nervous disposition, and one day he kicked out, and caught Jim a severe blow between the eyes. He was obliged to lie in darkness for more than a week, and, although he recovered, was left with the memory of the accident in the form of a scar on his forehead, and a plague of head-aches; which I think, more than anything else, gave him his timid, retiring character and fitted him for his later life as a gardener. He developed a great fear of horses, and for ever after avoided the stables.
My father, who saw my love of horses, made it his business to teach me as much as he could on that subject. He would tell me how, if a horse were short of breath, and his flanks shivering, he might be suffering from the Strangles; if he were dim of sight, and lay down shivering, it was a sign of the Staggers; if his breath stank, or foul matter issued from the nostrils, he might have an Ulcer, unless the matter were white, in which case it was the Glanders, or black, when it was the Mourning of the Chine, which is a kind of consumption. He taught me to watch for the colour of a horse’s urine, and the nature of his stool. Once, he led me up to a cart-horse which was suffering from worms. ‘Three different kinds of worms will attack a horse,’ he said, ‘the bot, the trunchion and the red maw worm. Lift her tail.’ I did so, and I must have been very young, for my eyes were level with her fundament. ‘Now put in thy hand.’ I was afraid that she would kick out, but my father told me that she would not kick. So I stood on tip-toe and slid in my hand. ‘Further. To the elbow. Further. Now, what dost feel? With thy fingers. Dost feel something wriggling?’ I said that I did, though I was not sure. ‘Pull him out.’ I did so, and found my wet fingers holding a little worm with a great head and small tail. ‘That is a bot,’ said my father. ‘He lives on the great gut and is easily pulled out. The trunchion and the maw worm live higher up. The trunchion is black and thick. The maw worm is long and thin and red.’
I remember being amazed by the vast store of my father’s knowledge, but he had learnt from his father, and in addition he owned a treasured copy of Gervase Markham’s ‘Maister-Peece’, which has been called the Farrier’s Bible. However, my father was his own man and did not agree with everything in Markham; for instance, in the matter of red worms, old Markham held that the first remedy was to bind human dung round the bit or snaffle, and, if that failed, thrust the guts of a hen down the horse's throat, whereas my father, on the contrary, believed a strong purge to be sufficient, though he purged only with great caution. Grooms in general think that a purge has worked only if it brings on a hurricane, but too strong a purge may kill a horse, especially if it is given to a horse which is weak or delicate, or which has an inflammation of the blood. However, there can be no doubt, that purges are very valuable in cleansing impurities. Every groom has his favourite ingredients for purges, and while Markham preferred Nitre, my father used coarse Aloes and Rhubarb, or Cassia, rolled into balls the size of a pullet’s egg, and given in spring and autumn.
I also learnt by watching my father at work, so that, by the age of eight or nine, I already knew the points of a good horse: that the mouth should be deep, the chest broad, the shoulders deep and the rump level with the withers, the tongue not too large, the neck not too long, the eye not too prottuberant. I knew how to bleed and purge, and how to cough a horse, that is, to try the soundness of his wind, by compressing the upper pipe of the wesand, or wind-pipe, between finger and thumb, and how to apply a glister, that is, luke-warm, and slowly. I knew how to tell a horse’s age from the condition of his gums, from the gloss on his coat, and from a particular mark which appears on his front teeth, from the fifth to the ninth year, when it disappears; but I also knew how to detect the practice of bishoping, whereby the teeth are filed clean to make the animal seem younger; indeed, I remember that my father once shewed me a crone of a horse which, to judge from its hollowed cheeks and fading coat, must have been fully twenty years old, yet its teeth had been filed and cut to make it appear ten years the younger. My father’s most important lesson, however, was one expressed not by his words, but in his acts: that horses are creatures with intelligence and emotions very like human beings, though to a lesser degree, and that when a horse is wayward, or rebellious, it is best to play the part not of a tyrant but of a lover, coaxing him gently into submission.
When I was twelve I became a groom in the stables at Harrington Hall, and as I took care of the horses—dressing, feeding, exercising, and performing a hundred other tasks for their benefit—I came to understand, or so I believe, something of their thoughts and feelings. Their disposition was greatly affected by the weather. On sunny days in spring and early summer, they would love to race round the fields and to roll on the ground, kicking their hooves in the air, but on sultry days when thunder was approaching they became nervous and irritable, especially if they were plagued by flies gathering round their eyes. I felt sorry for them, as I also felt sorry for them if they were ridden too hard, as often happened when they were taken hunting. In all my dealings with Mr. Harrington, I found him a very fair and generous employer, who never raised his voice in anger; yet, when he followed the hounds, he seemed to become a different man, and treated his mount with savagery. In a short morning’s hunt, the same big bay that had kicked my brother, a handsome, prancing creature, would be whipped and wrenched by Mr. Harrington into a condition of great distress, panting and foaming, blood round the mouth and eyes starting from the sockets. It often fell to me to soothe this poor animal. I would lead him into his stable, which I had already prepared with a litter of fresh straw, and there lift off the bridle, loosen his girth and throw a dry cloth over his loins; next, rub his face and throat and neck and give him a feed of hay. As he fed, I slowly washed his feet in soap and warm water, to the hocks, and last of all I took off the saddle, dried his back, and rubbed him down. All the while I would talk to him; for although my fellow grooms mocked me for this practice, horses like the sound of the human voice, and by degrees he would calm down, and recover his spirits.
Mr. Harrington had a young son, whose name was Joshua; he frequently came into the stables by himself, and I was set the task of keeping him safe. After his fourth birthday, when Mr. Harrington bought him a short, shag-haired pony, I also became his riding master, and every day in the stable-yard would drill him in the art of riding; thus, for instance, his breast should be thrown out, with the arms bent at the elbows and the elbows resting on the hips; there should be a small hollow in the reins, which should be held with a light hand, and with the thumbs resting flat upon each rein, while the waist should be pushed toward the pommel, so uniting him with the motions of the pony. He was an eager pupil, though sometimes too impatient for his own good, or that of the pony, and often I had to remind him that the way in which the best rider communicates his wishes to his mount is through the mouth—the hands moving the reins, the reins operating on the branches of the bit, the branches upon the mouth-piece. For the most part, however, Joshua and I got on very well, and we became good friends. The one and only difference between us came over the use of the whip—for Mr. Harrington had given him a whip, and he became angry when I forbad him to use it. ‘My father whips his horse!’ he objected, and was not pleased when I replied that no gentleman ever resorted to violence except when it was entirely necessary. On this subject I have been told that, in the Arab countries, which are known for their fine horses, the whip is scarcely ever used, and I wish that the same could be said here in England.
Mr. Harrington also owned a house in Bristol, and it was here that his family spent some months in the winter of 1765 to 1766. On account of my friendship with Joshua, I accompanied them, while my father stayed at Harrington Hall. I was greatly excited by the bustle and hubbub of Bristol, with its swarming streets, and soon began to entertain the notion that, instead of staying a humble groom, I might seek my fortune at sea. Mr. Harrington’s house was off College Green, and thence it was but a short walk up Brandon Hill, from which I could trace the passage of the ships as they moved down the river’s narrow channel and turned with spreading sails toward the open sea, like birds spreading their wings. Even nearer at hand was the quay itself, which I haunted and was haunted by, so that for hours at a stretch I would watch the ships as they swayed and jostled in the foul, filthy run of water, waiting their turn to unload their cargoes of sugar and rum, or tobacco and timber. The sailors were men with dark, weathered faces, and a swaggering gait which I envied and even tried to emulate; I would sidle into the taverns and eavesdrop on their conversations, and as I heard them talk about where they had been, and what they had seen, my imagination transported me into distant, exotick countries, and all kinds of improbable adventures.
Toward the end of that winter, I heard that a merchantman with an unusual cargo had landed at the quay after a long voyage to the East Indies. The rumour which ran like wild-fire through the city’s taverns was that a mermaid had been caught, and was being offered for sale to the highest bidder. Eager to see such a curious creature, which was said to be very beautiful, with a snow-white skin and a tail somewhat like that of a Porpoise, I mentioned it to Joshua, who promptly ran to tell his father; whereupon Mr. Harrington appeared to ask whether I was certain that it was a true mermaid. I gave the honest answer that I had been told that it was, but had not seen it with my own eyes. Mr. Harrington said that travellers generally returned with a cargo of tales which proved to be false; however, given the number of tales concerning mermaids, he did not entirely discount the possibility that such creatures existed, and he therefore desired me to go to the quay with Joshua, and to find out what I could as to the truth or otherwise of the story.
Fearing that we might be too late, we hurried over the wooden bridge to the quay, where a throng of people had gathered by the great crane at the lower end of Princes Street. The ship in question, by name the Dover, lay alongside, and as its cargo, which consisted, for the most part, of spices and other goods from the Indies, was being hoist ashore, I called to one of the sailors and asked him whether the mermaid had yet been brought to land. He replied with a grin that, if I would give him a shilling, he would conduct me and Joshua to her quarters, where we could watch her combing her black hair. I was about to hand over the shilling when another tar told me that there was no such creature on board; although he and his ship-mates had seen several mermaids during the voyage along the coasts of Madagascar and round the Cape of Good Hope, it had proved impossible to catch any, owing to the cannibals who had attempted to board the ship in their insatiable hunger for human flesh. However, he went on, there were several exotick and fierce animals on the ship, but for safety’s sake none of them could be landed until the tide was higher. I should here explain, for those who do not know Bristol well, the tide in the city runs at a great speed and has a very great fall, amounting to as much as twenty or thirty feet; so that, when the tide is quite out, the ships wallow on the mud with their keels exposed, and the tops of their masts barely reaching above the level of the quay. This would be a great disadvantage to those wishing to load and unload their cargoes, but for the cranes which are placed along the quay and which can raise most cargoes like a feather. The tide now falling to a low ebb, it was judged safer to wait until the succeeding morning to land the animals. I asked the sailor what kinds of animals he meant, and he mentioned a Leopard, a striped horse, two Elephants and a baboon with a white beard and blue testicles. ‘Blue?’ I queried. ‘Blue as up there,’ he assured me, pointing at a patch of sky; which piece of improbable intelligence, I immediately discounted as false.
I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.
Joshua and I waited for more than two hours, hoping to get a glimpse of the animals, but as dusk began to fall I judged it best that we return to Mr. Harrington’s house. I reported the sailor’s account to Mr. Harrington, who said that he would be interested to see the creatures. Mrs. Harrington, who was present, said to her husband, ‘John, we do not want to start a menagery.’ This was the first time that I ever heard of a menagery; it is a French word, which means, a collection of animals. Mr. Harrington replied: ‘I have no intention of doing so, I assure you.’
Early in the morning of the succeeding day, when we again went to the quay, Mr. Harrington accompanied us. With the tide now full, the deck of the Dover lay level with the quay; and we watched as, with many shouts, the great crane swung five sturdy crates on to the side of the quay. This took more than an hour, and, as the minutes passed, another crowd, almost as large as that of the day before, gathered to watch the spectacle unfold.
The Master of the Dover was one Captain Elias Hall, a stout, red-faced man who looked uneasy in a stiff suit. Taking a chisel, he prised two boards from the first crate, which had slipped its harness and landed heavily. It contained the striped horse, a creature known as a Zebra, and I saw at once that it had broken both its front legs and was very near death. Joshua was much distressed by its suffering, and the contents of the next crate to be opened were even more painful to behold, for the Leopard was long past all hope of recovery. This Leopard was evidently the prize trophy of the Captain, who had hoped, no doubt, to sell it for a large sum of money to some gentleman, and he did his best to rouse the poor animal by kicking its body and pulling its tail, to no avail, since it was utterly dead and had, indeed, begun to stink. The third crate, rather smaller, held a ginger-coloured baboon with a neat white beard and sky-blue testicles, just as the sailor had said; shivering as if it were cold, and holding its head in its hands, it crouched in a corner of the crate. Someone called for it to be brought forth, but someone else told us that it was excessively dangerous and would bite at will. Joshua now began to cry, saying that he wanted to go home; however, Mr. Harrington dissuaded him.
The next crate to be opened contained a large grey animal, lying on its side, deep in ordure, its hind legs in shackles. In my ignorance I had no notion even whether it might be of the land or sea, for in truth it did not resemble any creature that I had ever seen or imagined, except perhaps a whale. I heard the word ‘Elephant’, but scarcely registered its meaning in my astonishment. It had two huge ear flaps, four thick legs, and a single snake-like prottuberance dangling from the centre of its face. From a distance it seemed hairless, although on closer inspection I saw thick wiry hairs sprouting at intermittent intervals from the cracks and fissures in its skin, which was the colour of ash. Its eyes were closed. To me it looked nearly as dead as the Leopard, and Captain Hall evidently feared as much, because he ordered two of his sailors to throw sea-water over its body. At the shock of the water, the creature’s eyes remained closed, but it made a small stir with its head, whereupon a party of sailors dragged it out of the crate and, in spite of its great weight, endeavoured to set it on its feet. The Elephant promptly collapsed, being unable to stand, very nearly crushing one of the sailors beneath its weight. I was not surprized that it could not stand for, as I was presently informed, it had been confined in this tight space and virtual darkness for the entire length of the voyage, a matter of some ninety-one days, during the bulk of which it had been fed a meagre diet of biscuits and roots. It was easy to imagine the suffering that the creature must have endured, and the confusion in its mind; that it had survived the journey, was very near incredible.
When the final crate was opened we beheld another Elephant, in an even more desperate condition, a heap of grey skin.
Mr. Harrington and Captain Hall stepped aside and began to talk privately, while I learned more from the sailor. He told me that these two Elephants were mere children, barely half of the size that they might eventually achieve, something that I found privately incredible, but he assured me it was so; that another Elephant, a male, which had also been seized and brought on board ship, had been at least twice their bulk, and equipped with long tusks. When I asked where this prodigious creature now was the sailor told me that one night, at the height of a violent tempest, it had broken its shackles, burst out of its crate and rampaged the length and breadth of the ship, bellowing and trumpeting. There were fears that, with its size and weight, it might charge through the side of the ship, but to re-capture it in such a temper, even in calm weather, would have been a most hazardous operation; during a storm, it was not to be contemplated. However, the Elephant soon slipped and fell groaning on the deck, whereupon it was secured with nets and ropes and shackles. It never stirred again, and refusing all food and water was dead within three days. Captain Hall, who had been hoping to sell it for a large sum, had been sorry at its end, but the crew was generally relieved to be rid of a dangerous animal, and glad of the flesh provided by the carcass. I asked the sailor what Elephant tasted like, and he answered that it was very palatable, similar in flavour to beef, though far tougher in texture. What remained of the carcass was cast overboard, though not before the tusks and teeth were removed and stored in Captain Hall’s cabin.
Shewing my ignorance, I asked him what he meant by ‘tusks’, whereupon he spread his arms and described two great scimitars of white horn, jutting not from the temples, as one would suppose, but from the sockets in the roof of the Elephant’s mouth. The sailor said, it was a matter of regret that Nature had not supplied human beings with such weapons, which would have proved very useful. He also said that whoever bought these young Elephants would regret their purchase, for they would grow up full of rage and irritability, like the angry male.
Remembering Mr. Harrington’s words about travellers’ tales, I thought that this account of giant tusks might contain more invention than truth; however, both the tusks and teeth of the dead male were forthwith brought out of the ship. The teeth were well worn, testament to years of grinding, and reminded me of horses’ teeth, though they were much larger, the two largest being as large as house-bricks, while the tusks were smooth and curved and long, though not quite as long as the sailor had told me. One tusk was somewhat longer than the other, and though the tip of the longer tusk was pointed, that of the shorter of the tusks had been blunted. Also, when he had compared them to scimitars, I had supposed that they had sharp edges, which would slice off a man’s hand like the blade of a sword; whereas they were rounded. In colour, they were more cream than white.
Mr. Harrington now came to me. ‘Tom,’ said he, ‘is it your opinion that these miserable creatures are likely to live?’
I was a good deal flattered to be asked for my opinion, and also very uncertain how to reply. Both Elephants were breathing, but little more could be said in their favour; it seemed unlikely that either would survive for long. However, not wanting to answer entirely in the negative, I confidently suggested that they should be offered fresh water, and that if they drank it would be a sign that they might live. Pails of fresh water were promptly procured, and placed in front of the animals. Since their eyes were closed, they could scarcely be aware of what they were being offered; therefore, having received permission from Captain Hall, I cautiously crouched by the nearer of the Elephants, a female, and splashed a little water into her face. When she did not respond, I lifted her trunk, as I later learnt that it was called, and laid it across the back of my neck. This moment, when I touched an Elephant for the first time, when I felt the dry, wrinkled quality of its skin, when I felt the warmth of its skin, as warm as that of a human being, is one that I find hard to describe, but a great tenderness for the creature ran through me. By slowly straightening, I was able to lift the trunk and draw open the mouth of the Elephant, and into this dark cavern I poured a quantity of water. It vanished into the creature’s throat like a stream vanishing into a hole in the ground. I poured off the entire contents of the pail, and was reaching for another pail when the Elephant’s trunk seemed to slide off my neck, and to curl toward her mouth in search of further refreshment. At this sign of life I rejoiced greatly. After giving her the second pail, I turned my attention to the other Elephant, which I now saw to be a male, for two short tusks were poking from the skin above its mouth. I lifted its trunk, which was much heavier than that of the female, and laid it over my neck; but though I poured three full pails of water down its throat it failed to stir, and seemed past recovery. Mr. Harrington, who had watched all this, now turned to Captain Hall.
I had supposed that Mr. Harrington might purchase the tusks or some teeth; it never occurred to me that he would buy the Elephants. He was not, in general, the kind of man who acts out of a whim, or some passing caprice; his decisions were amply considered and based on Reason. In the end I believe that he bought the Elephants partly out of compassion, partly to please Joshua, on whom he doted, and partly as a shrewd piece of business, which might end in a handsome profit. He paid, as I understand, the sum of fifty guineas for the pair. Captain Hall, stuffing the coins inside his coat, did not look contented, but no other gentlemen having made an offer, he had little choice. If the Elephants had died, as seemed most likely, he would have received nothing for his pains.
Presently Mr. Harrington sent me for a cart and two horses, and I ran to College Green like the wind, dodging the sledges and drays and waggons. Martin Pound, another of Mr. Harrington’s grooms, had also come to Bristol. He was an old man, more than sixty years of age, and very slow, both in his actions and his wits; indeed I think perhaps he had always been slow, but age had slowed him even further. ‘Elephants?’—‘Yes.’—‘Two Elephants? Mr. Harrington has bought two Elephants?’—‘He has.’ The more I attempted to impress Martin with the need for haste, the slower he became. He sat on a wooden stool and shook his head in a doleful fashion, as if bemused at the extent of human folly. ‘Two Elephants? Why? Where will they live? Who is to look after them? What will they eat? How big are they?’ At length he rose stiffly to his feet and hobbled toward the cart-house, but it was a good hour before we had put the horses in the shafts and returned to the quay.
The male Elephant was still alive within its crate, but its breaths came very quick and uneven, and I was sure that it lay on the point of death. The crate was nailed up, and with great difficulty and much shouting was lifted aboard the cart and bumped up the hill to College Green. Once it had been set down in the stable-yard, the cart hurried back to the quay and fetched the female Elephant.
Each crate having been placed in a separate stable, Martin and I dismantled the boards, while Joshua and his father watched. At this moment Mrs. Harrington appeared. She was astonished at her husband’s purchase, as well she might be, given his previous assurances. ‘Is this wise?’ she cried. ‘Have you not considered that these animals may prove dangerous?’ Putting his arm to her waist, he replied that the Elephants were no danger at present—and indeed they were in no condition to harm a flea—and that they were not rapacious and cruel, like tygers or wolves. ‘On the contrary, from what I hear, they are intelligent beasts, with gentle natures, who become greatly valued and loyal servants. If so in the Indies, why not here in England? Besides, they will at all times be under the care of Tom and Martin. We need have nothing to fear.’
Once the two animals were settled on some straw, we cut the shackles with which they had been bound on the voyage. These shackles had chafed harshly and cut into the skin, and the wounds were discharging a foul fluid. We cleaned and dressed them as well as we could. Throughout this operation, the Elephants did not stir, and indeed for many hours they lay exhausted and asleep, while the sun came in the tops of the stable doors and shone on their wrinkled grey bodies. Sparrows chattered in the rafters, and every so often a bold sparrow might land on the ear of the stronger of the two Elephants, the female, and hop a little way over her head. The sun set, night fell; and when the succeeding day saw no change in their condition, I wondered whether they ought to be bled (and indeed my father, who was a strong advocate of bleeding, later chided me for failing to bleed them). In truth, I was not at all confident of finding a vein to open under their skins, and Martin was no help in the matter. He told me that, for his entire life, he had been a horse groom, not an Elephant groom, and that he knew nothing about Elephants, and had no desire to learn anything about Elephants, and intended to have as little as possible to do with Elephants. For all he cared, he said, I might take sole charge of the creatures. Though I too knew nothing about the care or behaviour of Elephants, I was strangely pleased by this arrangement.
As they lay like this, I had an excellent opportunity to begin my Elephant education by inspecting every inch of their bodies. Their skin was very dry, and in places looked like the bed of a dried pond, but it was softer than I had expected. Their huge ears were crinkled and stiff, and on each of their feet there sprouted a set of bony nails, the toes being concealed within the flesh. The fore-feet each had five nails, while the hind feet had four apiece, and the pads of the feet were covered in a hide so hard that it felt like horn. Their tails were thin straggling things, two feet long, and ending in tufts of hair, like the tails of oxen; which I thought unworthy of such great animals.
With some trepidation I peeled open their mouths. The tongues were fat and fleshy and there were four massive grinding teeth in each jaw, but no cutting teeth. The teeth of both the male and female were still strong and little worn, and from this, comparing them in my mind with the wear on the teeth of horses, I guessed that the Elephants were between eight and ten years old. Examining the trunks, I found that at the end of each was, not only a pair of nostrils, but also, above these nostrils, a kind of prottrusion or extension, like a finger, which is the means by which an Elephant is able to pick up tiny objects. I do not know the name for this finger, though I have often thought that it ought to have a name.
I was able to take the dimensions of both animals, which at this time were as follows:
FEMALE
From foot to foot, over the shoulder .............. 12 feet, 11 inches
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height ....... 7 feet, 3 inches
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail ............... 9 feet exactly
Trunk ..................................................................................... 5 feet 1 inch
Diameter of foot .......................................................................... 9 inches
MALE
From foot to foot, over the shoulder ................................ 14 feet, 11 inches
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height ............ 8 feet, 5 inches
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail ....... 10 feet, 2 inches
Trunk ............................................................................... 5 feet, 10 inches
Diameter of foot .................................................................... 1 foot, 1 inch
From this it may be seen that with Elephants, as is generally the case in Nature, the female is in every particular smaller than the male.
As with the Elephant which had died at sea, the tusks of the male were different in length. From base to tip, the right tusk measured 13 inches, whereas his left tusk measured only 10 inches and was somewhat blunter. This discrepancy at first seemed odd, but I later found the explanation, which is that a particular tusk is always used for digging, much as human beings use a particular hand for writing, and that this tusk is therefore gradually worn away.
Although I was unable to weigh the Elephants, I believe that each weighed about the same as a large bull, or less, for they had been starved on the voyage and their skins hung slack on their bones. As they lay asleep, little Joshua frequently visited the stables—for, like me, I believe, he had fallen in love with the Elephants—and together we would watch as their bodies rose and fell with each breath. We would rest our hands on their warm skins, or press our ears against their sides and listen to the slow beating of their hearts. Once, I remember, he asked me if the Elephants would die, and I told him that I hoped not. ‘They must not die,’ he declared in a fierce voice, ‘I will not allow them to die;’ whereupon he knelt and began to pray for their recovery, and I knelt as well, and who can tell that our prayers did not succeed, for soon after this the stronger of the two Elephants, the female, took a long draught of water, after which she fell asleep again. The male remained on the border between Life and Death for much longer, and although he drank water on the third day it was not until more than a week had passed that he began to make a slow recovery.
After two or more weeks, both Elephants had struggled to their feet, and I was able to tempt their appetites with fresh hay and vegetables, which I bought in quantities from the Corn Market in Union Street. Once they had remembered how to eat, they ate in prodigious haste, cramming their mouths, I would say full, but an Elephant has a very capacious mouth. They liked fruits and vegetables of all kinds, including turnips, beans and potatoes, and had an excessive fondness for carrots. I remember the great excitement they both shewed when I first placed a heap of carrots in their feeding troughs. This relish of carrots being so marked, made me speculate that the Elephants must know what carrots were; in short, that the taste of the carrots must stimulate memories of their lives in the natural state. Whether this is so I cannot say for sure, I have asked several travellers who have seen troops of wild Elephants in the Cape and the Indies, but none has ever been able to recall whether there were carrots present.
Their consumption of water was vast, amounting to a dozen barrels a day, and I also gave them fresh milk, in order to help them recover their strengths. Here I should mention that, when Elephants drink, they do so by means of their trunks, which they use as straws, sucking up long draughts of liquid which they squirt into their mouths. I have heard it said that very young Elephants do not use their trunks, but bend down to drink directly with their mouths; whether this is true or not I do not know, but I never saw my two Elephants using their mouths to drink. However, they were clumsy, and it was not uncommon for them to knock over the pails with their feet, which when they understood an expression of surprize would cross their faces. Their pleasure in food and drink was evident, and once they had finished their meal they would demand further nourishment by waving their trunks and uttering little squeals.
One thing I quickly discovered was that their sense of smell was acute, far more acute than that of a horse; whether as sharp as that of a blood-hound I would not know, but if I entered the stables with a carrot or another tid-bit in one of my pockets, both Elephants would promptly scent it out, and the way in which their trunks greedily reached toward the pocket and, indeed, into the pocket, made me think that they could all but see with their trunks. This cannot be so, and yet in an Elephant the scent organ, which lies in the tip of the trunk, is so sensitive that it is akin to a third eye. Once, when the male was asleep, I made the experiment of concealing some carrots in a heap of hay, and upon awakening he instantly detected the carrots and tossed the hay aside to reach his favourite food.
I was exceedingly cautious of their strength and power, and took care not to be caught between their bodies, nor against the stable walls, when I might easily have been crushed. I kept them in view all the time; I did not once turn my back on them, or let them gain any advantage of me with their trunks, which would suddenly sway in my direction. They had suffered so much on the voyage that they might easily nurture a hatred of human beings, and I had no intention of letting them take their revenge upon me. If they felt hatred, however, they never shewed it in their eyes, which rather seemed to convey an utter weariness. The eyes of an Elephant are close-set and small, relative to the vast size of the skull, indeed they seem to be much smaller than the eyes of horses, which appear large and globular; but they are nonetheless highly expressive.
Mr. Harrington and little Joshua regularly came to see the Elephants, and Joshua always wanted to pet them, as he did the horses; but this I strongly counselled against. However, I would hold him up to the stable doors, and then he would offer each of the great animals a carrot, which they would twitch from his hands.
‘Do you think they will ever forget the experience of the voyage?’ Mr. Harrington asked me once.
I answered that both dogs and horses would remember illtreatment many years after it had happened. Mr. Harrington said he had heard from one of his acquaintances, a certain Mr. Coad, who had travelled widely in the Indies, that Elephants had infinitely superior memories to other animals, indeed, in that respect, were perhaps second only to Man, and that it was likely that some traces of their ordeal would never be lost. ‘Yet I believe,’ he continued, ‘that by treating them with kindness and respect, we may gradually cause these unhappy memories to dim in their minds.’
Mrs. Harrington also visited. She was very nervous of the Elephants, and even more so when she saw me lifting Joshua toward them in order to give them carrots. Her husband assured her that the boy was entirely safe, and Joshua said fiercely, ‘Tom will look after me!’, but she remained fearful. She asked how much larger the Elephants would grow, and Mr. Harrington said he believed that they might grow a good deal more; the male would grow larger than the female. She said, ‘No one else owns Elephants, why should we?’—‘If I had left them by the quay, they would have died.’—‘It might have been better if they had,’ she said. Mr. Harrington: ‘How so?’ Mrs. Harrington: ‘Because, as they increase in size, they will grow more dangerous.’ Mr. Harrington: ‘That they may grow larger does not mean they will be more dangerous. They are peaceful enough now, are they not?’—‘At the moment, they are.’ Mrs. Harrington looked very uncertain, however. Mr. Harrington smiled: ‘Would you prefer me to have bought you a little Negro boy, for a pet slave?’—‘Not at all,’ she replied, ‘you know that I abhor slavery, it is a barbaric custom.’—‘Yet it serves a need,’ he answered, ‘and indeed most slaves are grateful to their masters, for how otherwise would they be cloathed and fed? How would they live?’—‘That may or may not be, but I still do not understand what you purpose in keeping these creatures.’—‘I myself am not sure, but everything has a purpose. In time, they may breed.’—‘Why, I very much hope not,’ cried Mrs. Harrington, ‘if they are brother and sister, as you say!’—‘So the Master of the Dover told me, but who knows?’ replied Mr. Harrington. This was the first time that I had heard of the Elephants being brother and sister, or of the idea that they might breed.
The history of the Elephants before their capture is a blank, and for a long time I was not even sure whether they were from the Indies or from the Cape, though this particular doubt I later resolved when the same Mr. Coad, whom I mentioned earlier, came to see the two animals at Harrington Hall, and told me that they must come from the Indies: for in the Indies, the male grows tusks, while the female does not; however in the island of Ceylon none of the Elephants, either male or female, grows tusks, whereas in the Cape the male and the female both have tusks, though the females’ are no more than short things.
I used to puzzle as to how such large creatures as Elephants could be taken into captivity. Were they caught in nets? However it was done, it seemed to me, the matter must be extremely hazardous, for if the Elephant chose to resist capture, as it must, who could stand against it? I have since heard of the ways in which they are taken prisoner in the Indies.
The first is used to capture single male Elephants, which, said Mr. Coad, are known as tuskers. A tame female Elephant is sent into the jungle; when she finds a herd of wild Elephants, she makes advances to one of the tuskers, giving him caresses with her trunk until his desires are inflamed. As he responds to her advances, she artfully leads him away from his family into some quiet nook where, as he hopes, he will achieve a conquest, and with his mind thus engrossed two young natives creep up and slip a sort of rope round his hind legs. This they wind round some sturdy tree. The wily female now moves away from the tusker, who on discovering the restraints on his legs flies into a terrible frenzy, roaring and trumpeting shrilly, and attempting to recover his liberty. At length, after some hours, he seems to fall into a fit of despair, but the rage soon returns, and he roars again, and tries to rip up the ground with his tusks, and then again gives himself up to despair, and so on, for several days, until the cravings of hunger and thirst subdue his temper.
The second method is, I think, the one that must have been employed with the Elephants of which I now took charge. This method involves hundreds of natives, who form a wide circle round a grazing herd in the jungle. These natives are careful not to alarm the Elephants at first, but by lighting fires and brandishing torches, they gradually persuade the herd to move in a particular direction, that is, away from all the noise and clamour, and toward a specially prepared inclosure, known in the Hindoo tongue as a keddah. Sometimes it may take as long as a week before the herd reaches the keddah. This inclosure is formed of upright and transverse beams, which make a barricade, reinforced by a deep ditch, and is in truth a series of linked inclosures, the first being large, the second smaller, the third smaller still. The barricades are concealed by thorn and bamboo, but as the Elephants approach they often grow suspicious and attempt a retreat, whereupon they are met by banging gongs and shaking rattles. Once they enter the first inclosure, a gate is shut, and then they have no choice but to advance into the second inclosure, and again the gate is shut, and at last they arrive at the third. The Elephants by now being greatly alarmed, charge and rampage, but at every point they are repelled, and they gather in a sulky group, not knowing what to do, and here remain for a day, until a small door is opened, leading into a narrow passage. Food is thrown down, enticing one of the Elephants to enter, as he does so the door is shut. He tries to turn but there is not enough space, he tries to back out but the way is barred: he has no choice but to advance further and further, his mind whirling in terror and confusion, until he finds himself confined in a tight space. Here he is held by strong ropes, and here, while his rage subsides, that is, until it is subdued by hunger, he remains for a week or month, or longer, in the company of a man known as a mahoot, who will become his keeper for the rest of his life. This man never leaves the Elephant’s side, and takes care of his every need; so that the Elephant comes to depend upon him, understanding his commands and doing anything to please him. Indeed, the Elephant is the man’s slave, but there is this difference from many human slaves: that he serves willingly, lovingly, without questioning his position or feeling the least resentment: for, in the mind of the Elephant, his keeper, however poor or humble his station in human society, is a kind of God.
