The Herds Are Hunted With Tame, Steady Elephants, And On
A Likely One Being Singled Out, He Is Driven By
Slow degrees into a
strong inclosure, and there attached by stout rattan ropes to an
experienced old elephant, and fed
On meager diet for some weeks, varied
with such dainties as sugar-cane and sweet cakes. The captive is
allowed to go and bathe, and plaster himself with mud, all the while
secured to his tame companion, and though he makes the most desperate
struggles for liberty, he always ends by giving in, and being led back
to his fastenings in the corral. At times a man gets upon him, sits on
his head, and walks upon his back. It is here generally about two years
before an elephant is regarded as thoroughly broken in and to be
trusted; and, as elsewhere, stories are told of elephant revenge and
keepers being killed. A full-grown elephant requires about 200 lbs. of
food a day. These animals are destructive to the cocoa-nut trees, and
when they get an opportunity they put their heads against them, and
then, with a queer swaying movement throw the weight of their bodies
over and over again against the stem till the palm comes down with a
crash, and the dainty monster regales himself with the blossoms and the
nuts. The Malays pet and caress them, and talk to them as they do to
their buffaloes. Half a ton is considered a sufficient load for a
journey if it be metal or anything which goes into small compass, but
if the burden be bulky, from four to six hundred weight is enough.
Except where there are rivers or roads suitable for bullock-carts or
pack bullocks, they do nearly all the carrying trade of Perak, carrying
loads on "elephant tracks" through the jungle. An elephant always puts
his foot into the hole which another elephant's foot has made, so that
a frequented track is nothing but a series of pits filled with mud and
water. Trying to get along one of these I was altogether baffled, for
it had no verge. The jungle presented an impassable wall of dense
vegetation on either side, the undergrowth and trees being matted
together by the stout, interminable strands of the rattan and other
tenacious creepers, including a thorn-bearing one, known among the
Malays as "tigers' claws," from the curved hook of the thorn. I think I
made my way for about seven feet. This was a favorable specimen of a
jungle track, and I now understand how the Malays, by felling two or
three trees, so that they lay across similar and worse roads, were able
to delay the British troops at a given spot for a day at a time.
[*It is possible that this was an exaggeration, and that the real price
is $50.]
One might think that elephants roaming at large would render
cultivation impossible, but they have the greatest horror of anything
that looks like a fence, and though they are almost powerful enough to
break down a strong stockade, a slight fence of reeds usually keeps
them out of padi, cane, and maize plantations.
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