Often have I pitied Gordon Cumming when I
have heard him talked of as a palpable Munchausen, by men who never
fired a rifle, or saw a wild beast, except in a cage; and still these
men form the greater proportion of the `readers' of these works.
Men who have not seen, cannot understand the grandeur of wild sports in
a wild country. There is an indescribable feeling of supremacy in a man
who understands his game thoroughly, when he stands upon some elevated
point and gazes over the wild territory of savage beasts. He feels
himself an invader upon the solitudes of nature. The very stillness of
the scene is his delight. There is a mournful silence in the calmness of
the evening, when the tropical sun sinks upon the horizon--a conviction
that man has left this region undisturbed to its wild tenants. No hum of
distant voices, no rumbling of busy wheels, no cries of domestic animals
meet the ear. He stands upon a wilderness, pathless and untrodden by the
foot of civilisation, where no sound is ever heard but that of the
elements, when the thunder rolls among the towering forests or the wind
howls along the plains. He gazes far, far into the distance, where the
blue mountains melt into an indefinite haze; he looks above him to the
rocky pinnacles which spring from the level plain, their swarthy cliffs
glistening from the recent shower, and patches of rich verdure clinging
to precipices a thousand feet above him. His eye stretches along the
grassy plains, taking at one full glance a survey of woods, and rocks,
and streams; and imperceptibly his mind wanders to thoughts of home, and
in one moment scenes long left behind are conjured up by memory, and
incidents are recalled which banish for a time the scene before him.
Lost for a moment in the enchanting power of solitude, where fancy and
reality combine in their most bewitching forms, he is suddenly roused by
a distant sound made doubly loud by the surrounding silence--the shrill
trumpet of an elephant. He wakes from his reverie; the reality of the
present scene is at once manifested. He stands within a wilderness where
the monster of the forest holds dominion; he knows not what a day, not
even what a moment, may bring forth; he trusts in a protecting Power,
and in the heavy rifle, and he is shortly upon the track of the king of
beasts.
The king of beasts is generally acknowledged to be the 'lion'; but no
one who has seen a wild elephant can doubt for a moment that the title
belongs to him in his own right. Lord of all created animals in might
and sagacity, the elephant roams through his native forests. He browses
upon the lofty branches, upturns young trees from sheer malice, and from
plain to forest he stalks majestically at break of day 'monarch of all
he surveys.'
A person who has never seen a wild elephant can form no idea of his real
character, either mentally or physically. The unwieldy and
sleepy-looking beast, who, penned up in his cage at a menagerie,
receives a sixpence in his trunk, and turns round with difficulty to
deposit it in a box; whose mental powers seem to be concentrated in the
idea of receiving buns tossed into a gaping mouth by children's
hands,--this very beast may have come from a warlike stock. His sire may
have been the terror of a district, a pitiless highwayman, whose soul
thirsted for blood; who, lying in wait in some thick bush, would rush
upon the unwary passer-by, and know no pleasure greater than the act of
crushing his victim to a shapeless mass beneath his feet. How little
does his tame sleepy son resemble him! Instead of browsing on the rank
vegetation of wild pasturage, he devours plum-buns; instead of bathing
his giant form in the deep rivers and lakes of his native land, he steps
into a stone-lined basin to bathe before the eyes of a pleased
multitude, the whole of whom form their opinion of elephants in general
from the broken-spirited monster which they see before them.
I have even heard people exclaim, upon hearing anecdotes of
elephant-hunting, 'Poor things!'
Poor things, indeed! I should like to see the very person who thus
expresses his pity, going at his best pace, with a savage elephant after
him : give him a lawn to run upon if he likes, and see the elephant
gaining a foot in every yard of the chase, fire in his eye, fury in his
headlong charge; and would not the flying gentleman who lately exclaimed
'Poor thing!' be thankful to the lucky bullet that would save him from
destruction?
There are no animals more misunderstood than elephants; they are
naturally savage, wary, and revengeful; displaying as great courage when
in their wild state as any animal known. The fact of their great natural
sagacity renders them the more dangerous as foes. Even when tamed, there
are many that are not safe for a stranger to approach, and they are then
only kept in awe by the sharp driving hook of the mohout.
In their domesticated state I have seen them perform wonders of sagacity
and strength; but I have nothing to do with tame elephants; there are
whole books written upon the subject, although the habits of an elephant
can be described in a few words.
All wild animals in a tropical country avoid the sun. They wander forth
to feed upon the plains in the evening and during the night, and they
return to the jungle shortly after sunrise.
