[146] The natives of Ceylon profess that the high-caste elephants, such as are allotted to the temples, are of all others the most difficult to tame, and M. BLES, the Dutch correspondent of BUFFON, mentions a caste of elephants which he had heard of, as being peculiar to the Kandyan kingdom, that were not higher than a heifer (génisse), covered with hair, and insusceptible of being tamed. (BUFFON, _Supp._ vol. vi. p. 29.) Bishop HEBER, in the account of his journey from Bareilly towards the Himalayas, describes the Raja Gourman Sing, “mounted on a little female elephant, hardly bigger than a Durham ox, and almost as shaggy as a poodle.” (_Journ._ ch. xvii.) It will be remembered that the mammoth discovered in 1803 embedded in icy soil in Siberia, was covered with a coat of long hair, with a sort of wool at the roots. Hence there arose the question whether that northern region had been formerly inhabited by a race of elephants, so fortified by nature against cold; or whether the individual discovered had been borne thither by currents from some more temperate latitudes. To the latter theory the presence of hair seemed a fatal objection; but so far as my own observation goes, I believe the elephants are more or less provided with hair. In some it is more developed than in others, and it is particularly observable in the young, which when captured are frequently covered with a woolly fleece, especially about the head and shoulders. In the older individuals in Ceylon, this is less apparent; and in captivity the hair appears to be altogether removed by the custom of the mahouts to rub their skin daily with oil and a rough lump of burned clay. See a paper on the subject, _Asiat. Journ._ N. S. vol. xiv. p. 182, by Mr. G. FAIRHOLME. Fossil remains of elephants of extremely small dimensions have, it is said, been discovered in the island of Malta. [147] Διπλῆς δέ φασιν εὐπορῆσαι καρδίας· Καὶ τῇ μὲν εἶναι θυμικὸν τὸ θηρίον Εἰς ἀκρατῆ κίνησιν ἠρεθισμένον, Τῇ δὲ προσηνὲς καὶ θρασύτητος ξένον. Καὶ πῇ μὲν αὐτῶν ἀκροᾶσθαι τῶν λόγων Οὓς ἄν τις Ἰνδὸς εὖ τιθασεύων λέγοι, Πῇ δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς τοὺς νομεῖς ἐπιτρὲχειν Εἰς τὰς παλαιὰς ἐκτραπὲν κακουργίας. PHILE, _Expos. de Eleph._ l. 126, &c. [148] Captain YULE, in his _Narrative of an Embassy to Ava in 1855_, records an illustration of this tendency of the elephant to sudden death; one newly captured, the process of taming which was exhibited to the British Envoy, “made vigorous resistance to the placing of a collar on its neck, and the people were proceeding to tighten it, when the elephant, which had lain down as if quite exhausted, reared suddenly on the hind quarters, and fell on its side—_dead!_” (P. 104.)