Sketches of the Natural History of CeylonTennent, James Emerson, Sir
Science
Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon
Tennent, James Emerson, Sir
Animals -- Sri Lanka; Asiatic elephant -- Sri Lanka
her head under her chest, till she lay as round as a hedgehog, and
rising again, stood on her fore-feet, and lifting her hind-feet off the
ground, she wrung them from side to side, till the great tree above her
quivered in every branch.
Before proceeding to catch the others, we requested that the smaller
trees and jungle, which partially obstructed our view, might be broken
away, being no longer essential to screen the entrance to the corral;
and five of the tame elephants were brought up for the purpose. They
felt the strength of each tree with their trunks, then swaying it
backwards and forwards, by pushing it with their foreheads, they watched
the opportunity when it was in full swing to raise their fore-feet
against the stem, and bear it down to the ground. Then tearing off the
festoons of climbing plants, and trampling down the smaller branches and
brushwood, they pitched them with their tusks, piling them into heaps
along the side of the fence.
[Illustration of elephant resisting capture.]
Amongst the last that was secured was the solitary individual belonging
to the fugitive herd. When they attempted to drag him backwards from the
tree near which he was noosed, he laid hold of it with his trunk and lay
down on his side immoveable. The temple tusker and another were ordered
up to assist, and it required the combined efforts of the three
elephants to force him along. When dragged to the place at which he was
to be tied up, he continued the contest with desperation, and to prevent
the second noose being placed on his foot, he sat down on his haunches,
almost in the attitude of the "Florentine Boar," keeping his hind-feet
beneath him, and defending his fore-feet with his trunk, with which he
flung back the rope as often as it was attempted to attach it.
[Illustration of elephant lying on ground after capture.]
When overpowered and made fast, his grief was most affecting; his
violence sunk to utter prostration, and he lay on the ground, uttering
choking cries, with tears trickling down his cheeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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