“Picture to yourself an elephant with a body covered with thick fur, about thirteen feet in height, and fifteen in length, with tusks eight feet long, thick, and curving outward at their ends, a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and a half feet in thickness, and a tail, naked up to the end, which was covered with thick, tufty hair. The animal was fat, and well grown. Death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers. His parchment-like, large, naked ears lay fearfully turned up over the head. About the shoulders and the back he had stiff hair, about a foot in length, like a mane. The long, outer hair was deep brown, and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked so wild, and so penetrated with pitch (_und mit Pech so durchgedrungen_), that it resembled the rind of an old oak-tree. On the sides it was cleaner (_reiner_); and under the outer hair, there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm, and thick, and of a fallow-brown color. The giant was well protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal was fearfully strange and wild. It had not the shape of our present elephants. As compared with our Indian elephants, its head was rough, the brain-case low and narrow, but the trunk and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful. Our elephant is an awkward animal; but, compared with this mammoth, it is as an Arabian steed to a coarse, ugly dray-horse. I could not divest myself of a feeling of fear as I approached the head. The broken, widely open eyes gave the animal an appearance of life, as though it might move in a moment, and destroy us with a roar.... The bad smell of the body warned us that it was time to save of it what we could; and the swelling flood, too, bid us hasten. First of all, we cut off the tusks, and sent them to the cutter. Then the people tried to hew the head off; but, notwithstanding their good will, this was slow work. As the belly of the animal was cut open, the intestines rolled out; and then the smell was so dreadful, that I could not overcome my nauseousness, and was obliged to turn away. But I had the stomach separated, and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were young shoots of the fir and pine: a quantity of young fir-cones, also in a chewed state, were mixed with the mass.... As we were eviscerating the animal, I was as careless and forgetful as my Jakuti, who did not notice that the ground was sinking under their feet, until a fearful scream warned me of their misfortune, as I was still groping in the animal’s stomach. Shocked, I sprang up, and beheld how the river was burying in its waves our five Jakuti and our laboriously saved beast. Fortunately the boat was near, so that our poor work-people were all saved; but the mammoth was swallowed up by the waves, and never more made its appearance.”