The
Habits Of All Animals Generally Depend Upon The Nature Of The
Localities They Inhabit.
Thus, as these countries were subject to
long drought and scarcity of water, the elephants were, in some
places, contented with drinking every alternate day.
Where they
were much hunted by the aggageers, they would seldom drink twice
consecutively in the same river; but, after a long draught in the
Settite, they would march from twenty-five to thirty miles, and
remain for a day between that river and the Mareb or Gash, to
which they would hurry on the following night. At other times,
these wily animals would drink in the Settite, and retire to the
south; feeding upon Mek Nimmur's corn-fields, they would hurry
forward to the river Salaam, about thirty miles distant, and from
thence, in a similar manner, either to the Atbara on one side, or
into the Abyssinian mountains, where, at all times, they could
procure a supply of water. I have frequently discovered fresh
grains of dhurra in their dung, at a great distance from the
nearest corn-field; when the rapid digestion of the elephant is
considered, it must be allowed that the fresh dung found in the
morning bore witness to the theft of corn during the past night;
thus the elephant had marched many miles after feeding. In the
"Rifle and Hound in Ceylon," published in 1854, I gave a detailed
description of the elephants of that country, which, although
peculiar in the general absence of tusks, are the same as the
Indian species.
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