They Take Much Delight To Bathe Themselves In Water,
And They Swim Better Than Any Beast I Know.
They lie down and rise again
at pleasure, as other beasts do.
Their pace is not swift, being only
about three miles an hour; but they are the surest footed beasts in the
world, as they never endanger their riders by stumbling. They are the
most docile of all creatures, and of those we account merely possessed
of instinct, they come nearest to reason. Lipsius, Cent. 1, Epist.
50, in his observations, taken from others, writes more concerning them
than I can confirm, or than any can credit, as I conceive; yet I can
vouch for many things which seem to be acts of reason rather than of
mere brute sense, which we call instinct. For instance, an elephant will
do almost any thing which his keeper commands. If he would have him
terrify a man, he will make towards him as if he meant to tread him in
pieces, yet does him no hurt. If he would have him to abuse a man, he
will take up dirt, or kennel water, in his trunk, and dash it in his
face. Their trunks are long grisly snouts, hanging down betwixt their
tusks, by some called their hand, which they use very dexterously on all
occasions.
An English merchant, of good credit, told me the following story of an
elephant, as having happened to his own knowledge at Ajimeer, the place
where the Mogul then resided: - This elephant used often to pass through
the bazar, or market-place, where a woman who there sold herbs used to
give him a handful as he passed her stall. This elephant afterwards went
mad,[234] and, having broken his fetters, took his way furiously through
the market-place, whence all the people fled as quickly as possible to
get out of his way. Among these was his old friend the herb-woman, who,
in her haste and terror, forgot to take away her little child. On coming
to the place where this woman was in use to sit, the elephant stopped,
and seeing the child among the herbs, he took it up gently in his trunk,
and laid it carefully on a stall under the projecting roof of a house
hard by, without doing it the smallest injury, and then continued his
furious course. A travelling Jesuit, named Acosta, relates a similar
story of an elephant at Goa, as from his own experience. - The king keeps
certain elephants for the execution of malefactors. When one of these is
brought forth to dispatch a criminal, if his keeper desires that the
offender be destroyed speedily, this vast creature will instantly crush
him to atoms under his foot; but if desired to torture him, will break
his limbs successively, as men are broken on the wheel.
[Footnote 234: This temporary madness of the male elephants is usual in
the rutting season. - E.]
The Mogul takes great delight in these stately animals, and often, when
he sits in state, calls for some of the finest and largest to be
brought, which are taught to bend before him, as in reverence, when they
come into his presence.
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