The Elephant Keeper
The Elephant Keeper
Christopher Nicholson
I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.In the middle of the 18th century, a ship docks at Bristol with an extraordinary cargo: two young elephants. Bought by a wealthy landowner, they are taken to his estate in the English countryside. A stable boy, Tom Page, is given the task of caring for them.The Elephant Keeper is Tom’s account of his life with the elephants. As the years pass, and as they journey across England, his relationship with the female elephant deepens in a startling manner. Along the way they meet incredulity, distrust and tragedy, and it is only their understanding of each other that keeps them together.Christopher Nicholson’s charming and captivating novel explores notions of sexuality and violence, freedom and captivity, and the nature of story-telling – but most of all it is the study of a profound and remarkable love between an elephant and a human being.
CHRISTOPHER NICHOLSON
THE
ELEPHANT
KEEPER
To my mother
Contents
Title Page (#u772586f3-7816-5f02-8129-6b47d6964a3a)Dedication (#uc6b658fb-589a-518c-b6af-750c62ff1896)Part One: Sussex, 1773 (#u1a8c005d-ca99-505a-a422-a83350a82b34)April 24TH (#ueac79f6e-ccb9-564f-be51-ea59d2156f48)The History Of The Elephant (#u8643cb5f-07dd-5f12-8c2a-3bda8dd0343b)Chapter I (#ufd81e039-2e17-5ae5-b972-d9054028ea16)Chapter II (#ua9e94394-e03b-53e0-9bec-5d1c7f3853c1)Chapter III (#ub6facd97-124d-5946-9391-a74030abb33b)Chapter IV (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter V (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter VI (#litres_trial_promo)Part Two: Sussex, 1773 (#litres_trial_promo)May 30TH (#litres_trial_promo)Part Three: London, 1793 (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Part Four (#litres_trial_promo)The Repository (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
Sussex, 1773 (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
APRIL 24TH. It was six days ago that Lord Bidborough, accompanied by another gentleman, came to the Elephant House and, after making the usual inquiries about my charge, who was, at that moment, quietly eating hay, asked whether it was true that, as he had heard, I was able to read. I replied that my parents had put in my way various books, which I had sat over, piecing together the letters until they began to make sense; whereupon his Lordship asked me which books, and I mentioned the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. This last work, I said, had so fascinated and enthralled me that I had formed the ambition of taking ship and travelling to remote parts of the globe in search of wealth and adventure, an ambition from which my father had dissuaded me, pointing out the dangers that lay in such travel, and recommending me to content myself with my lot. Lord Bidborough listened carefully. ‘Your father would appear to have been wise,’ he said, smiling. ‘Many lives have been squandered in the pursuit of adventure. Your parents could read and write, too?’—‘They could read, my Lord, but scarcely write a word.’—‘But did you learn to write?’ I replied that I had been taught to write at the village school, and had mastered the art tolerably well, although I had not written for a long time.
At this the other gentleman, whose name was Dr. Goldsmith, said: ‘Lord Bidborough reliably informs me that you are able to speak Elephant.’ I explained, cautiously, that I could communicate with the Elephant by making certain signs and sounds, and that I could also interpret certain signs and sounds made by the Elephant; but none of this was any more than a man might do with his most favoured hounds. Just as a hound would obey if told to beg, or sit, or leave the room, so, in the same fashion I could command the Elephant to kneel down, to sit, to coil up her trunk and to perform other tasks. Dr. Goldsmith here gave a glance to Lord Bidborough, who said, ‘Tom, Dr. Goldsmith would be most interested to see a demonstration of this communication at work.’ I readily complied, leading the Elephant out of her stable into the yard, where I bid her shake hands with Dr. Goldsmith; that is, to shake his hand with her trunk, which she proceeded to do, to his astonishment. At a word she knelt, very slowly and carefully, as is the way with Elephants, whereupon I made a sign with my hands and she rolled gently on to her side.
Lord Bidborough asked, if this was indeed not a form of language. Dr. Goldsmith answered, that it was certainly remarkable: ‘But,’ he went on, ‘is not the Elephant known as the half-reasoning Animal?’ They discussed this for some minutes while the Elephant lay on the floor of the yard, her long-fringed eyes watching me for the signal to rise. From the slight twitches of her trunk I could tell that her patience was being tested, but she remained still and docile.
Presently the two gentlemen walked round her body and inspected her, poking her with their sticks and making further inquiries of her diet and her age. Dr. Goldsmith, who had pulled out a pocket-book and lead pencil, took notes on my answers. He was intrigued, as both ladies and gentlemen always are, with her trunk, which he called her probbossis. Having crouched to touch it, which he did with a certain caution, he asked me to explain its use and purpose. I replied that it had a double purpose: not only was it a breathing tube, like a human nose, in which respect it was highly sensitive, but also that it served as an arm and a hand, in which respect it was both prodigiously strong, capable of tearing branches off trees and hurling rocks, and highly dextrous, enabling the Elephant to untie knotted ropes or to pick up objects as small as a piece of straw, or a pin, at will. I asked Dr. Goldsmith to put his pencil on the floor; next, having drawn the Elephant to her feet, bid her pick it up and return it to him, which she did very courteously, and with a certain gleam of amusement in her eyes. Lord Bidborough gravely remarked that ‘the male of the human species also possesses an organ with a double purpose.’
In order to demonstrate the Elephant’s strength, I offered to command her to lift Dr. Goldsmith into the air, as she has often done in the past with his Lordship’s acquaintances. Though obviously tempted, Dr. Goldsmith was concerned as to the possible dangers, and asked whether I could assure him that he would be perfectly safe. Was it possible that the beast would hurl him to the ground, or tighten her probbossis like a snake so that he would be unable to breathe? I said that I had no qualms whatever on the matter, and that I would stake my life on his safety; however, if he preferred, I would demonstrate by ordering the Elephant to lift me in his stead. Dr. Goldsmith was on the point of accepting my offer, when Lord Bidborough, with an arch smile, asked him if he was afraid. He seemed somewhat stung by this sally.
‘Indeed, my Lord, I am not afraid in the least, but when it comes to my own life I generally exercise some prudence—however, in this instance, I am content to trust myself to your Lordship’s guidance. If I should be squeezed to death, my affairs are in order—I am ready to meet my Maker.’
So saying he took off his coat and stood arms extended, one arm holding his stick, the other his pencil and paper, while I gave the Elephant her instructions. Dr. Goldsmith is short in height, with a prominent forehead above a face which is deeply lined, and pitted from the Small Pox; and his expression, as the Elephant’s trunk extended itself, coiled round his waist, gripped, and drew him without apparent effort from the ground, was such that Lord Bidborough laughed heartily. ‘Are you much squeezed?’ he called. Dr. Goldsmith, some eight feet in the air, ignored his mirth, instead declaring in an affectedly calm voice that the prospect was d—ned excellent, and that he felt as comfortable as if he had been seated in a great chair; indeed, had he been equipped with a spy-glass or a book, he would have been perfectly content to stay in the coils of the Elephant all afternoon. However, when I asked him whether he would care to be set upon the Elephant’s back, or to be lowered to the ground, he replied that whenever it was convenient he would be most obliged if he could be replaced on terra-firma. The Elephant lowered him to the ground and released him from her grip. Dr. Goldsmith was a trifle flushed, but not excessively so, and as I returned to him his coat, he thanked me very much for an experience that he would never forget.
I rewarded the Elephant’s obedience with an apple that I kept in my pocket for such a purpose. Taking it eagerly with the end of her trunk, she swiftly placed it inside the cave of her mouth. Such a reward to an Elephant is as a sweet-meat is to a child.
It was then that Lord Bidborough asked me whether, if he were to supply me with pen, ink and paper, I would be willing to write a History of the Elephant. He said that no one had ever written such a History before, and that an account describing the animal’s characteristics, behaviour, habits and intelligence, by someone such as myself, who had intimate knowledge of the creature, would be of immense interest to many important people in London and elsewhere. Dr. Goldsmith agreed, assuring me that I would be doing a service to Mankind to write about such a noble beast. I was much surprized and for a moment, so daunted by the prospect, that I scarcely knew how to reply; at length I said that I feared that I would not have the skill.
‘Tom, have no fear,’ said Lord Bidborough. ‘It need only be a simple account of particulars. In practice, writing is no different from talking—is that not so, Dr. Goldsmith?’
‘Indeed, my Lord, writing is like talking; or, indeed, like riding a horse; once one is in the saddle, it is easy enough. A tap of the whip, and away you go. Of course, as there are good and bad riders, so there are good and bad writers, but everyone has the ability to write, provided he believes in his ability.’
Although I had some doubts on the matter, it was clear to me that, his Lordship being my master, I had no choice but to agree to the request, which I did without further demur. He thanked me, and said that he would ask Mr. Bridge to arrange for writing materials to be brought to the Elephant House. Later that day one of the pages duly arrived with three quills, twenty sheets of paper, and a horn of ink.
I can scarcely describe the despair that I went through on the succeeding evening. I soon found a title, The History of TheElephant. By Thomas Page, to which I added, Elephant Keeper toLord Bidborough, of Easton, Sussex; however, after this, I could not think how to proceed. Half-formed sentences drifted like down through my mind; when I reached out, they slid away. Why, I thought, do I have to write this history? Can anything written by a simple servant, the son of a groom, the keeper of an Elephant, be of interest to learned gentlemen in London? At one point, I remember, I had been gazing at the word Elephant for several minutes when the letters seemed to dissolve before my eyes, so that they became, not members of an alphabet, but lines and shapes without any meaning. Swimming in the candlelight, they seemed to make themselves into a single animal, a long, flattish beast with an E for a head and a t for a tail.
At length, remembering Lord Bidborough’s ‘a simple account of particulars’, I succeeded in writing a first sentence: The Elephant is, without Dispute, the largest Creature in theWorld: yet, before the ink had dried, I became filled with doubt. For (I thought), the Elephant is not the largest Creature in the world: there are creatures in the sea, whales and the Leviathan (which some people say is a kind of whale), which are far larger than Elephants. Thus I crossed out my first sentence, and instead wrote: The Elephant is, without Dispute, the largest Creaturein the entire terrestrial World, which, on further reflection, I changed to: There can be no Dispute that the Elephant is the largestand most stupendous Creature in the entire terrestrial World. Then I found myself wondering whether even this was true. Who knows what the world contains? Who knows what may be disputed? I saw the gentlemen in London, shaking their heads and murmuring in disagreement. Crossing out again, I wrote: Itis generally believed that the Elephant is the largest and moststupendous Creature in the entire terrestrial World. When at its fullGrowth, it measures as much as sixteen Feet high, or higher. Again, much doubt, but in desperation I plunged on: While Nature hasbeen generous to the Elephant in affording her such a great Size, itmay be said that She has been careless as to Form: for the Elephantis commonly considered a most ugly Animal. Here I checked, and re-wrote: is commonly considered a most unwieldy Animal. Itsmost extraordinary Feature is the long Prottuberance which extendsfrom its Nose, which is known as its Trunk. I now crossed out Trunk and wrote Probbossis, which I thought would please Dr. Goldsmith and all the other learned gentlemen, but the word looked so odd that I resolved to have nothing to do with it and returned to Trunk. But a further doubt had struck me, as to whether I had been entirely accurate: for, it may be argued, the Trunk of the Elephant does not extend from, but is, its nose. Is a trunk any more than a very long and remarkable snout? However, I continued: Its Ears are broad while its Skin is generallygrey. It is said to be the most sagacious of Creatures and isknown as the half-reasoning Animal. The Character of the Elephantis generally peaceful, yet they are renowned for their Bravery andCourage and will do battle with Lions and Tygers, if provoked.
The pain which it cost me to produce these feeble sentences was enormous, and later in the night, I woke, and lay in the darkness, thinking to myself, Lord Bidborough expects me to write this History, therefore I must write it, for Lord Bidborough is my master: yet I know nothing of Elephants in the wild, in the Indies and the Cape. There are many stories about Elephants, some of which I heard from Mr. Coad, but I do not know whether they are true. I do not know whether it is true that, as Elephants grow older, their skins harden until they cannot be pierced by a sword, or whether it is true that Elephants have their own kings, who are attended by troops of servant Elephants, or whether it is true that Elephants worship the moon. I do not even know for certain that Elephants fight with lions and tygers. How can I write outside my knowledge, except by a kind of guess-work, and what value is that? Besides (I went on, arguing with myself), whatever his Lordship says, writing is different to speaking; people do not write as they speak. In speech, they use ordinary, common words, the words which flow as easily out of their minds as water out of a spring, whereas, when they write, they employ a different vocabulary. In speech, a man sees an Elephant, but, once he has taken a pen into his hand, he observes it, or regards it. He does not meet an Elephant, but encounters it, and instead of trying to mount the same Elephant he attempts, or strives, or endeavours, to climb on its back. There is an entirely different language for writing, of which I am largely ignorant. I cannot write the History, I am incapable.
When I next met, that is, when I next encountered Lord Bidborough, I begged him to excuse me from the task. He read the page which I had written (to my shame, it was covered not only with crossings-out, but also with numerous runs and blotches).
‘Why, Tom,’ he said with a smile, ‘is she so very unwieldy? Is it that the Trunk is unwieldy, or the entire Creature?’
I stammered a reply: ‘My Lord, I do not think that she is unwieldy, however…I had originally written “ugly”. Would “ugly” be better?’
‘Ugly? Tom, the Elephant is surely what Nature intended her to be. To me, she is a remarkable Beauty.’
‘To me also, my Lord. But, if I write that she is beautiful…’ I stopped, confused.
Lord Bidborough looked at me in his kindly way. ‘Tom, forgive me—though I can see that you have laboured hard over this—it is not what I intended. I do not wish you to write a History of Elephants in general, but of this particular Elephant. I wish you to write a History of your Life together, in which you begin by relating how you first met the Elephant, and proceed from there. And if it is your opinion that she is beautiful, why, then, you should say so.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ I said.
Again I stopped, unable to express the full extent of my reservations, except in my burning face.
‘You know, Tom, so long as what you write is accurate and free from Invention—so long as it is faithful to the Truth—you cannot go far wrong,’ he told me.
‘Yes, my Lord.’
Having returned me the page, which I took very unwillingly, he went on: ‘By the by, Tom, though this is a small matter—with respect to style, there is no great need to employ capital letters quite so freely as you have done. In the past, I know, it was thought correct to lavish them on every possible occasion; but the fashion has changed, as fashions do.’
‘I will not use them at all, my Lord.’
‘No, no,’ said he, smiling, ‘you should use them for proper names, and at the beginning of sentences, and also, perhaps, if you wish to shew the importance of some thing or other—then they are valuable, and indeed necessary. For the rest, they may be left aside. But it is a small matter, scarcely worth mentioning.’
‘May I use a capital for the Elephant, my Lord?’
‘Why—if you wish. After all, she is the subject of the History, is she not, and therefore very important. However, perhaps I should not have mentioned it. The simple Truth should be your aim, Tom. Fix yourself on that, and you will have no great difficulty.’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
I find that I have therefore agreed again to try again, that is to strive, to attempt, to endeavour again (endeavour, I think, being the largest and most imposing word, I am resolved to stick with endeavour as much as possible), though my doubts remain: for I have no skill in the art of composition, and I fear that, even if I succeed in writing the History, it will be a dull affair, since I am no Gulliver and have no adventures to fill up the pages.
THE HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
CHAPTER I (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
I WAS born, the older of two children, in the village of Thornhill, Somersetshire, in the year of our Lord 1753. My father was head groom to Mr. John Harrington, a sugar merchant, who owned half a dozen ships trading out of the city of Bristol; these had brought him such wealth that he had acquired an estate, comprising some two thousand acres of farms and woodland. Mr. Harrington was very fond of riding over his land, and maintained a stable comprising some ten horses. From a very young age, it may be no more than two or three, I used to leave my mother’s side and accompany my father as he walked from the village to the stables. I loved the warmth of the stables and the sweet smells of straw and dung, and I loved the horses, with their soft noses and large ears and intelligent eyes. I thought of the horses as my friends, and gave them names. There was one mare, a roan with a white blaze on her head, whom I named Star-light; I used to kiss her muzzle and talk to her, telling her stories that I supposed might amuse her, and she would prick her ears and appear to listen. I loved her greatly and persuaded myself that she loved me in return—imagining, even, that I was not a human being but a horse. One summer’s evening, when I may have been six years of age, I fell asleep against her body in the straw, which caused a great alarm in my family, my mother and father passing a sleepless night in the belief that I had been stolen by gypsies, as happened occasionally in those days. When I was discovered, they did not know whether to be pleased or angry.
From this, you may draw the conclusion that I grew up a solitary boy, but I had the company of other children in Thornhill and Gillerton, and also of my younger brother, Jim, and we often played together round the stables. However, of the horses in Mr. Harrington’s stables, six were cart-horses, two hunters, and two hackneys, that is, road-horses, and while the carthorses were placid, heavy beasts, the hunters and hackneys had some thorough-bred in them and their tempers were far less certain. One of the hunters in particular, a big bay gelding, had a very nervous disposition, and one day he kicked out, and caught Jim a severe blow between the eyes. He was obliged to lie in darkness for more than a week, and, although he recovered, was left with the memory of the accident in the form of a scar on his forehead, and a plague of head-aches; which I think, more than anything else, gave him his timid, retiring character and fitted him for his later life as a gardener. He developed a great fear of horses, and for ever after avoided the stables.
My father, who saw my love of horses, made it his business to teach me as much as he could on that subject. He would tell me how, if a horse were short of breath, and his flanks shivering, he might be suffering from the Strangles; if he were dim of sight, and lay down shivering, it was a sign of the Staggers; if his breath stank, or foul matter issued from the nostrils, he might have an Ulcer, unless the matter were white, in which case it was the Glanders, or black, when it was the Mourning of the Chine, which is a kind of consumption. He taught me to watch for the colour of a horse’s urine, and the nature of his stool. Once, he led me up to a cart-horse which was suffering from worms. ‘Three different kinds of worms will attack a horse,’ he said, ‘the bot, the trunchion and the red maw worm. Lift her tail.’ I did so, and I must have been very young, for my eyes were level with her fundament. ‘Now put in thy hand.’ I was afraid that she would kick out, but my father told me that she would not kick. So I stood on tip-toe and slid in my hand. ‘Further. To the elbow. Further. Now, what dost feel? With thy fingers. Dost feel something wriggling?’ I said that I did, though I was not sure. ‘Pull him out.’ I did so, and found my wet fingers holding a little worm with a great head and small tail. ‘That is a bot,’ said my father. ‘He lives on the great gut and is easily pulled out. The trunchion and the maw worm live higher up. The trunchion is black and thick. The maw worm is long and thin and red.’
I remember being amazed by the vast store of my father’s knowledge, but he had learnt from his father, and in addition he owned a treasured copy of Gervase Markham’s ‘Maister-Peece’, which has been called the Farrier’s Bible. However, my father was his own man and did not agree with everything in Markham; for instance, in the matter of red worms, old Markham held that the first remedy was to bind human dung round the bit or snaffle, and, if that failed, thrust the guts of a hen down the horse's throat, whereas my father, on the contrary, believed a strong purge to be sufficient, though he purged only with great caution. Grooms in general think that a purge has worked only if it brings on a hurricane, but too strong a purge may kill a horse, especially if it is given to a horse which is weak or delicate, or which has an inflammation of the blood. However, there can be no doubt, that purges are very valuable in cleansing impurities. Every groom has his favourite ingredients for purges, and while Markham preferred Nitre, my father used coarse Aloes and Rhubarb, or Cassia, rolled into balls the size of a pullet’s egg, and given in spring and autumn.
I also learnt by watching my father at work, so that, by the age of eight or nine, I already knew the points of a good horse: that the mouth should be deep, the chest broad, the shoulders deep and the rump level with the withers, the tongue not too large, the neck not too long, the eye not too prottuberant. I knew how to bleed and purge, and how to cough a horse, that is, to try the soundness of his wind, by compressing the upper pipe of the wesand, or wind-pipe, between finger and thumb, and how to apply a glister, that is, luke-warm, and slowly. I knew how to tell a horse’s age from the condition of his gums, from the gloss on his coat, and from a particular mark which appears on his front teeth, from the fifth to the ninth year, when it disappears; but I also knew how to detect the practice of bishoping, whereby the teeth are filed clean to make the animal seem younger; indeed, I remember that my father once shewed me a crone of a horse which, to judge from its hollowed cheeks and fading coat, must have been fully twenty years old, yet its teeth had been filed and cut to make it appear ten years the younger. My father’s most important lesson, however, was one expressed not by his words, but in his acts: that horses are creatures with intelligence and emotions very like human beings, though to a lesser degree, and that when a horse is wayward, or rebellious, it is best to play the part not of a tyrant but of a lover, coaxing him gently into submission.
When I was twelve I became a groom in the stables at Harrington Hall, and as I took care of the horses—dressing, feeding, exercising, and performing a hundred other tasks for their benefit—I came to understand, or so I believe, something of their thoughts and feelings. Their disposition was greatly affected by the weather. On sunny days in spring and early summer, they would love to race round the fields and to roll on the ground, kicking their hooves in the air, but on sultry days when thunder was approaching they became nervous and irritable, especially if they were plagued by flies gathering round their eyes. I felt sorry for them, as I also felt sorry for them if they were ridden too hard, as often happened when they were taken hunting. In all my dealings with Mr. Harrington, I found him a very fair and generous employer, who never raised his voice in anger; yet, when he followed the hounds, he seemed to become a different man, and treated his mount with savagery. In a short morning’s hunt, the same big bay that had kicked my brother, a handsome, prancing creature, would be whipped and wrenched by Mr. Harrington into a condition of great distress, panting and foaming, blood round the mouth and eyes starting from the sockets. It often fell to me to soothe this poor animal. I would lead him into his stable, which I had already prepared with a litter of fresh straw, and there lift off the bridle, loosen his girth and throw a dry cloth over his loins; next, rub his face and throat and neck and give him a feed of hay. As he fed, I slowly washed his feet in soap and warm water, to the hocks, and last of all I took off the saddle, dried his back, and rubbed him down. All the while I would talk to him; for although my fellow grooms mocked me for this practice, horses like the sound of the human voice, and by degrees he would calm down, and recover his spirits.
Mr. Harrington had a young son, whose name was Joshua; he frequently came into the stables by himself, and I was set the task of keeping him safe. After his fourth birthday, when Mr. Harrington bought him a short, shag-haired pony, I also became his riding master, and every day in the stable-yard would drill him in the art of riding; thus, for instance, his breast should be thrown out, with the arms bent at the elbows and the elbows resting on the hips; there should be a small hollow in the reins, which should be held with a light hand, and with the thumbs resting flat upon each rein, while the waist should be pushed toward the pommel, so uniting him with the motions of the pony. He was an eager pupil, though sometimes too impatient for his own good, or that of the pony, and often I had to remind him that the way in which the best rider communicates his wishes to his mount is through the mouth—the hands moving the reins, the reins operating on the branches of the bit, the branches upon the mouth-piece. For the most part, however, Joshua and I got on very well, and we became good friends. The one and only difference between us came over the use of the whip—for Mr. Harrington had given him a whip, and he became angry when I forbad him to use it. ‘My father whips his horse!’ he objected, and was not pleased when I replied that no gentleman ever resorted to violence except when it was entirely necessary. On this subject I have been told that, in the Arab countries, which are known for their fine horses, the whip is scarcely ever used, and I wish that the same could be said here in England.
Mr. Harrington also owned a house in Bristol, and it was here that his family spent some months in the winter of 1765 to 1766. On account of my friendship with Joshua, I accompanied them, while my father stayed at Harrington Hall. I was greatly excited by the bustle and hubbub of Bristol, with its swarming streets, and soon began to entertain the notion that, instead of staying a humble groom, I might seek my fortune at sea. Mr. Harrington’s house was off College Green, and thence it was but a short walk up Brandon Hill, from which I could trace the passage of the ships as they moved down the river’s narrow channel and turned with spreading sails toward the open sea, like birds spreading their wings. Even nearer at hand was the quay itself, which I haunted and was haunted by, so that for hours at a stretch I would watch the ships as they swayed and jostled in the foul, filthy run of water, waiting their turn to unload their cargoes of sugar and rum, or tobacco and timber. The sailors were men with dark, weathered faces, and a swaggering gait which I envied and even tried to emulate; I would sidle into the taverns and eavesdrop on their conversations, and as I heard them talk about where they had been, and what they had seen, my imagination transported me into distant, exotick countries, and all kinds of improbable adventures.
Toward the end of that winter, I heard that a merchantman with an unusual cargo had landed at the quay after a long voyage to the East Indies. The rumour which ran like wild-fire through the city’s taverns was that a mermaid had been caught, and was being offered for sale to the highest bidder. Eager to see such a curious creature, which was said to be very beautiful, with a snow-white skin and a tail somewhat like that of a Porpoise, I mentioned it to Joshua, who promptly ran to tell his father; whereupon Mr. Harrington appeared to ask whether I was certain that it was a true mermaid. I gave the honest answer that I had been told that it was, but had not seen it with my own eyes. Mr. Harrington said that travellers generally returned with a cargo of tales which proved to be false; however, given the number of tales concerning mermaids, he did not entirely discount the possibility that such creatures existed, and he therefore desired me to go to the quay with Joshua, and to find out what I could as to the truth or otherwise of the story.
Fearing that we might be too late, we hurried over the wooden bridge to the quay, where a throng of people had gathered by the great crane at the lower end of Princes Street. The ship in question, by name the Dover, lay alongside, and as its cargo, which consisted, for the most part, of spices and other goods from the Indies, was being hoist ashore, I called to one of the sailors and asked him whether the mermaid had yet been brought to land. He replied with a grin that, if I would give him a shilling, he would conduct me and Joshua to her quarters, where we could watch her combing her black hair. I was about to hand over the shilling when another tar told me that there was no such creature on board; although he and his ship-mates had seen several mermaids during the voyage along the coasts of Madagascar and round the Cape of Good Hope, it had proved impossible to catch any, owing to the cannibals who had attempted to board the ship in their insatiable hunger for human flesh. However, he went on, there were several exotick and fierce animals on the ship, but for safety’s sake none of them could be landed until the tide was higher. I should here explain, for those who do not know Bristol well, the tide in the city runs at a great speed and has a very great fall, amounting to as much as twenty or thirty feet; so that, when the tide is quite out, the ships wallow on the mud with their keels exposed, and the tops of their masts barely reaching above the level of the quay. This would be a great disadvantage to those wishing to load and unload their cargoes, but for the cranes which are placed along the quay and which can raise most cargoes like a feather. The tide now falling to a low ebb, it was judged safer to wait until the succeeding morning to land the animals. I asked the sailor what kinds of animals he meant, and he mentioned a Leopard, a striped horse, two Elephants and a baboon with a white beard and blue testicles. ‘Blue?’ I queried. ‘Blue as up there,’ he assured me, pointing at a patch of sky; which piece of improbable intelligence, I immediately discounted as false.
I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.
Joshua and I waited for more than two hours, hoping to get a glimpse of the animals, but as dusk began to fall I judged it best that we return to Mr. Harrington’s house. I reported the sailor’s account to Mr. Harrington, who said that he would be interested to see the creatures. Mrs. Harrington, who was present, said to her husband, ‘John, we do not want to start a menagery.’ This was the first time that I ever heard of a menagery; it is a French word, which means, a collection of animals. Mr. Harrington replied: ‘I have no intention of doing so, I assure you.’
Early in the morning of the succeeding day, when we again went to the quay, Mr. Harrington accompanied us. With the tide now full, the deck of the Dover lay level with the quay; and we watched as, with many shouts, the great crane swung five sturdy crates on to the side of the quay. This took more than an hour, and, as the minutes passed, another crowd, almost as large as that of the day before, gathered to watch the spectacle unfold.
The Master of the Dover was one Captain Elias Hall, a stout, red-faced man who looked uneasy in a stiff suit. Taking a chisel, he prised two boards from the first crate, which had slipped its harness and landed heavily. It contained the striped horse, a creature known as a Zebra, and I saw at once that it had broken both its front legs and was very near death. Joshua was much distressed by its suffering, and the contents of the next crate to be opened were even more painful to behold, for the Leopard was long past all hope of recovery. This Leopard was evidently the prize trophy of the Captain, who had hoped, no doubt, to sell it for a large sum of money to some gentleman, and he did his best to rouse the poor animal by kicking its body and pulling its tail, to no avail, since it was utterly dead and had, indeed, begun to stink. The third crate, rather smaller, held a ginger-coloured baboon with a neat white beard and sky-blue testicles, just as the sailor had said; shivering as if it were cold, and holding its head in its hands, it crouched in a corner of the crate. Someone called for it to be brought forth, but someone else told us that it was excessively dangerous and would bite at will. Joshua now began to cry, saying that he wanted to go home; however, Mr. Harrington dissuaded him.
The next crate to be opened contained a large grey animal, lying on its side, deep in ordure, its hind legs in shackles. In my ignorance I had no notion even whether it might be of the land or sea, for in truth it did not resemble any creature that I had ever seen or imagined, except perhaps a whale. I heard the word ‘Elephant’, but scarcely registered its meaning in my astonishment. It had two huge ear flaps, four thick legs, and a single snake-like prottuberance dangling from the centre of its face. From a distance it seemed hairless, although on closer inspection I saw thick wiry hairs sprouting at intermittent intervals from the cracks and fissures in its skin, which was the colour of ash. Its eyes were closed. To me it looked nearly as dead as the Leopard, and Captain Hall evidently feared as much, because he ordered two of his sailors to throw sea-water over its body. At the shock of the water, the creature’s eyes remained closed, but it made a small stir with its head, whereupon a party of sailors dragged it out of the crate and, in spite of its great weight, endeavoured to set it on its feet. The Elephant promptly collapsed, being unable to stand, very nearly crushing one of the sailors beneath its weight. I was not surprized that it could not stand for, as I was presently informed, it had been confined in this tight space and virtual darkness for the entire length of the voyage, a matter of some ninety-one days, during the bulk of which it had been fed a meagre diet of biscuits and roots. It was easy to imagine the suffering that the creature must have endured, and the confusion in its mind; that it had survived the journey, was very near incredible.
When the final crate was opened we beheld another Elephant, in an even more desperate condition, a heap of grey skin.
Mr. Harrington and Captain Hall stepped aside and began to talk privately, while I learned more from the sailor. He told me that these two Elephants were mere children, barely half of the size that they might eventually achieve, something that I found privately incredible, but he assured me it was so; that another Elephant, a male, which had also been seized and brought on board ship, had been at least twice their bulk, and equipped with long tusks. When I asked where this prodigious creature now was the sailor told me that one night, at the height of a violent tempest, it had broken its shackles, burst out of its crate and rampaged the length and breadth of the ship, bellowing and trumpeting. There were fears that, with its size and weight, it might charge through the side of the ship, but to re-capture it in such a temper, even in calm weather, would have been a most hazardous operation; during a storm, it was not to be contemplated. However, the Elephant soon slipped and fell groaning on the deck, whereupon it was secured with nets and ropes and shackles. It never stirred again, and refusing all food and water was dead within three days. Captain Hall, who had been hoping to sell it for a large sum, had been sorry at its end, but the crew was generally relieved to be rid of a dangerous animal, and glad of the flesh provided by the carcass. I asked the sailor what Elephant tasted like, and he answered that it was very palatable, similar in flavour to beef, though far tougher in texture. What remained of the carcass was cast overboard, though not before the tusks and teeth were removed and stored in Captain Hall’s cabin.
Shewing my ignorance, I asked him what he meant by ‘tusks’, whereupon he spread his arms and described two great scimitars of white horn, jutting not from the temples, as one would suppose, but from the sockets in the roof of the Elephant’s mouth. The sailor said, it was a matter of regret that Nature had not supplied human beings with such weapons, which would have proved very useful. He also said that whoever bought these young Elephants would regret their purchase, for they would grow up full of rage and irritability, like the angry male.
Remembering Mr. Harrington’s words about travellers’ tales, I thought that this account of giant tusks might contain more invention than truth; however, both the tusks and teeth of the dead male were forthwith brought out of the ship. The teeth were well worn, testament to years of grinding, and reminded me of horses’ teeth, though they were much larger, the two largest being as large as house-bricks, while the tusks were smooth and curved and long, though not quite as long as the sailor had told me. One tusk was somewhat longer than the other, and though the tip of the longer tusk was pointed, that of the shorter of the tusks had been blunted. Also, when he had compared them to scimitars, I had supposed that they had sharp edges, which would slice off a man’s hand like the blade of a sword; whereas they were rounded. In colour, they were more cream than white.
Mr. Harrington now came to me. ‘Tom,’ said he, ‘is it your opinion that these miserable creatures are likely to live?’
I was a good deal flattered to be asked for my opinion, and also very uncertain how to reply. Both Elephants were breathing, but little more could be said in their favour; it seemed unlikely that either would survive for long. However, not wanting to answer entirely in the negative, I confidently suggested that they should be offered fresh water, and that if they drank it would be a sign that they might live. Pails of fresh water were promptly procured, and placed in front of the animals. Since their eyes were closed, they could scarcely be aware of what they were being offered; therefore, having received permission from Captain Hall, I cautiously crouched by the nearer of the Elephants, a female, and splashed a little water into her face. When she did not respond, I lifted her trunk, as I later learnt that it was called, and laid it across the back of my neck. This moment, when I touched an Elephant for the first time, when I felt the dry, wrinkled quality of its skin, when I felt the warmth of its skin, as warm as that of a human being, is one that I find hard to describe, but a great tenderness for the creature ran through me. By slowly straightening, I was able to lift the trunk and draw open the mouth of the Elephant, and into this dark cavern I poured a quantity of water. It vanished into the creature’s throat like a stream vanishing into a hole in the ground. I poured off the entire contents of the pail, and was reaching for another pail when the Elephant’s trunk seemed to slide off my neck, and to curl toward her mouth in search of further refreshment. At this sign of life I rejoiced greatly. After giving her the second pail, I turned my attention to the other Elephant, which I now saw to be a male, for two short tusks were poking from the skin above its mouth. I lifted its trunk, which was much heavier than that of the female, and laid it over my neck; but though I poured three full pails of water down its throat it failed to stir, and seemed past recovery. Mr. Harrington, who had watched all this, now turned to Captain Hall.
I had supposed that Mr. Harrington might purchase the tusks or some teeth; it never occurred to me that he would buy the Elephants. He was not, in general, the kind of man who acts out of a whim, or some passing caprice; his decisions were amply considered and based on Reason. In the end I believe that he bought the Elephants partly out of compassion, partly to please Joshua, on whom he doted, and partly as a shrewd piece of business, which might end in a handsome profit. He paid, as I understand, the sum of fifty guineas for the pair. Captain Hall, stuffing the coins inside his coat, did not look contented, but no other gentlemen having made an offer, he had little choice. If the Elephants had died, as seemed most likely, he would have received nothing for his pains.
Presently Mr. Harrington sent me for a cart and two horses, and I ran to College Green like the wind, dodging the sledges and drays and waggons. Martin Pound, another of Mr. Harrington’s grooms, had also come to Bristol. He was an old man, more than sixty years of age, and very slow, both in his actions and his wits; indeed I think perhaps he had always been slow, but age had slowed him even further. ‘Elephants?’—‘Yes.’—‘Two Elephants? Mr. Harrington has bought twoElephants?’—‘He has.’ The more I attempted to impress Martin with the need for haste, the slower he became. He sat on a wooden stool and shook his head in a doleful fashion, as if bemused at the extent of human folly. ‘Two Elephants? Why? Where will they live? Who is to look after them? What will they eat? How big are they?’ At length he rose stiffly to his feet and hobbled toward the cart-house, but it was a good hour before we had put the horses in the shafts and returned to the quay.
The male Elephant was still alive within its crate, but its breaths came very quick and uneven, and I was sure that it lay on the point of death. The crate was nailed up, and with great difficulty and much shouting was lifted aboard the cart and bumped up the hill to College Green. Once it had been set down in the stable-yard, the cart hurried back to the quay and fetched the female Elephant.
Each crate having been placed in a separate stable, Martin and I dismantled the boards, while Joshua and his father watched. At this moment Mrs. Harrington appeared. She was astonished at her husband’s purchase, as well she might be, given his previous assurances. ‘Is this wise?’ she cried. ‘Have you not considered that these animals may prove dangerous?’ Putting his arm to her waist, he replied that the Elephants were no danger at present—and indeed they were in no condition to harm a flea—and that they were not rapacious and cruel, like tygers or wolves. ‘On the contrary, from what I hear, they are intelligent beasts, with gentle natures, who become greatly valued and loyal servants. If so in the Indies, why not here in England? Besides, they will at all times be under the care of Tom and Martin. We need have nothing to fear.’
Once the two animals were settled on some straw, we cut the shackles with which they had been bound on the voyage. These shackles had chafed harshly and cut into the skin, and the wounds were discharging a foul fluid. We cleaned and dressed them as well as we could. Throughout this operation, the Elephants did not stir, and indeed for many hours they lay exhausted and asleep, while the sun came in the tops of the stable doors and shone on their wrinkled grey bodies. Sparrows chattered in the rafters, and every so often a bold sparrow might land on the ear of the stronger of the two Elephants, the female, and hop a little way over her head. The sun set, night fell; and when the succeeding day saw no change in their condition, I wondered whether they ought to be bled (and indeed my father, who was a strong advocate of bleeding, later chided me for failing to bleed them). In truth, I was not at all confident of finding a vein to open under their skins, and Martin was no help in the matter. He told me that, for his entire life, he had been a horse groom, not an Elephant groom, and that he knew nothing about Elephants, and had no desire to learn anything about Elephants, and intended to have as little as possible to do with Elephants. For all he cared, he said, I might take sole charge of the creatures. Though I too knew nothing about the care or behaviour of Elephants, I was strangely pleased by this arrangement.
As they lay like this, I had an excellent opportunity to begin my Elephant education by inspecting every inch of their bodies. Their skin was very dry, and in places looked like the bed of a dried pond, but it was softer than I had expected. Their huge ears were crinkled and stiff, and on each of their feet there sprouted a set of bony nails, the toes being concealed within the flesh. The fore-feet each had five nails, while the hind feet had four apiece, and the pads of the feet were covered in a hide so hard that it felt like horn. Their tails were thin straggling things, two feet long, and ending in tufts of hair, like the tails of oxen; which I thought unworthy of such great animals.
With some trepidation I peeled open their mouths. The tongues were fat and fleshy and there were four massive grinding teeth in each jaw, but no cutting teeth. The teeth of both the male and female were still strong and little worn, and from this, comparing them in my mind with the wear on the teeth of horses, I guessed that the Elephants were between eight and ten years old. Examining the trunks, I found that at the end of each was, not only a pair of nostrils, but also, above these nostrils, a kind of prottrusion or extension, like a finger, which is the means by which an Elephant is able to pick up tiny objects. I do not know the name for this finger, though I have often thought that it ought to have a name.
I was able to take the dimensions of both animals, which at this time were as follows:
FEMALE
From foot to foot, over the shoulder .............. 12 feet, 11 inches
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height ....... 7 feet, 3 inches
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail ............... 9 feet exactly
Trunk ..................................................................................... 5 feet 1 inch
Diameter of foot .......................................................................... 9 inches
MALE
From foot to foot, over the shoulder ................................ 14 feet, 11 inches
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height ............ 8 feet, 5 inches
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail ....... 10 feet, 2 inches
Trunk ............................................................................... 5 feet, 10 inches
Diameter of foot .................................................................... 1 foot, 1 inch
From this it may be seen that with Elephants, as is generally the case in Nature, the female is in every particular smaller than the male.
As with the Elephant which had died at sea, the tusks of the male were different in length. From base to tip, the right tusk measured 13 inches, whereas his left tusk measured only 10 inches and was somewhat blunter. This discrepancy at first seemed odd, but I later found the explanation, which is that a particular tusk is always used for digging, much as human beings use a particular hand for writing, and that this tusk is therefore gradually worn away.
Although I was unable to weigh the Elephants, I believe that each weighed about the same as a large bull, or less, for they had been starved on the voyage and their skins hung slack on their bones. As they lay asleep, little Joshua frequently visited the stables—for, like me, I believe, he had fallen in love with the Elephants—and together we would watch as their bodies rose and fell with each breath. We would rest our hands on their warm skins, or press our ears against their sides and listen to the slow beating of their hearts. Once, I remember, he asked me if the Elephants would die, and I told him that I hoped not. ‘They must not die,’ he declared in a fierce voice, ‘I will not allow them to die;’ whereupon he knelt and began to pray for their recovery, and I knelt as well, and who can tell that our prayers did not succeed, for soon after this the stronger of the two Elephants, the female, took a long draught of water, after which she fell asleep again. The male remained on the border between Life and Death for much longer, and although he drank water on the third day it was not until more than a week had passed that he began to make a slow recovery.
After two or more weeks, both Elephants had struggled to their feet, and I was able to tempt their appetites with fresh hay and vegetables, which I bought in quantities from the Corn Market in Union Street. Once they had remembered how to eat, they ate in prodigious haste, cramming their mouths, I would say full, but an Elephant has a very capacious mouth. They liked fruits and vegetables of all kinds, including turnips, beans and potatoes, and had an excessive fondness for carrots. I remember the great excitement they both shewed when I first placed a heap of carrots in their feeding troughs. This relish of carrots being so marked, made me speculate that the Elephants must know what carrots were; in short, that the taste of the carrots must stimulate memories of their lives in the natural state. Whether this is so I cannot say for sure, I have asked several travellers who have seen troops of wild Elephants in the Cape and the Indies, but none has ever been able to recall whether there were carrots present.
Their consumption of water was vast, amounting to a dozen barrels a day, and I also gave them fresh milk, in order to help them recover their strengths. Here I should mention that, when Elephants drink, they do so by means of their trunks, which they use as straws, sucking up long draughts of liquid which they squirt into their mouths. I have heard it said that very young Elephants do not use their trunks, but bend down to drink directly with their mouths; whether this is true or not I do not know, but I never saw my two Elephants using their mouths to drink. However, they were clumsy, and it was not uncommon for them to knock over the pails with their feet, which when they understood an expression of surprize would cross their faces. Their pleasure in food and drink was evident, and once they had finished their meal they would demand further nourishment by waving their trunks and uttering little squeals.
One thing I quickly discovered was that their sense of smell was acute, far more acute than that of a horse; whether as sharp as that of a blood-hound I would not know, but if I entered the stables with a carrot or another tid-bit in one of my pockets, both Elephants would promptly scent it out, and the way in which their trunks greedily reached toward the pocket and, indeed, into the pocket, made me think that they could all but see with their trunks. This cannot be so, and yet in an Elephant the scent organ, which lies in the tip of the trunk, is so sensitive that it is akin to a third eye. Once, when the male was asleep, I made the experiment of concealing some carrots in a heap of hay, and upon awakening he instantly detected the carrots and tossed the hay aside to reach his favourite food.
I was exceedingly cautious of their strength and power, and took care not to be caught between their bodies, nor against the stable walls, when I might easily have been crushed. I kept them in view all the time; I did not once turn my back on them, or let them gain any advantage of me with their trunks, which would suddenly sway in my direction. They had suffered so much on the voyage that they might easily nurture a hatred of human beings, and I had no intention of letting them take their revenge upon me. If they felt hatred, however, they never shewed it in their eyes, which rather seemed to convey an utter weariness. The eyes of an Elephant are close-set and small, relative to the vast size of the skull, indeed they seem to be much smaller than the eyes of horses, which appear large and globular; but they are nonetheless highly expressive.
Mr. Harrington and little Joshua regularly came to see the Elephants, and Joshua always wanted to pet them, as he did the horses; but this I strongly counselled against. However, I would hold him up to the stable doors, and then he would offer each of the great animals a carrot, which they would twitch from his hands.
‘Do you think they will ever forget the experience of the voyage?’ Mr. Harrington asked me once.
I answered that both dogs and horses would remember illtreatment many years after it had happened. Mr. Harrington said he had heard from one of his acquaintances, a certain Mr. Coad, who had travelled widely in the Indies, that Elephants had infinitely superior memories to other animals, indeed, in that respect, were perhaps second only to Man, and that it was likely that some traces of their ordeal would never be lost. ‘Yet I believe,’ he continued, ‘that by treating them with kindness and respect, we may gradually cause these unhappy memories to dim in their minds.’
Mrs. Harrington also visited. She was very nervous of the Elephants, and even more so when she saw me lifting Joshua toward them in order to give them carrots. Her husband assured her that the boy was entirely safe, and Joshua said fiercely, ‘Tom will look after me!’, but she remained fearful. She asked how much larger the Elephants would grow, and Mr. Harrington said he believed that they might grow a good deal more; the male would grow larger than the female. She said, ‘No one else owns Elephants, why should we?’—‘If I had left them by the quay, they would have died.’—‘It might have been better if they had,’ she said. Mr. Harrington: ‘How so?’ Mrs. Harrington: ‘Because, as they increase in size, they will grow more dangerous.’ Mr. Harrington: ‘That they may grow larger does not mean they will be more dangerous. They are peaceful enough now, are they not?’—‘At the moment, they are.’ Mrs. Harrington looked very uncertain, however. Mr. Harrington smiled: ‘Would you prefer me to have bought you a little Negro boy, for a pet slave?’—‘Not at all,’ she replied, ‘you know that I abhor slavery, it is a barbaric custom.’—‘Yet it serves a need,’ he answered, ‘and indeed most slaves are grateful to their masters, for how otherwise would they be cloathed and fed? How would they live?’—‘That may or may not be, but I still do not understand what you purpose in keeping these creatures.’—‘I myself am not sure, but everything has a purpose. In time, they may breed.’—‘Why, I very much hope not,’ cried Mrs. Harrington, ‘if they are brother and sister, as you say!’—‘So the Master of the Dover told me, but who knows?’ replied Mr. Harrington. This was the first time that I had heard of the Elephants being brother and sister, or of the idea that they might breed.
The history of the Elephants before their capture is a blank, and for a long time I was not even sure whether they were from the Indies or from the Cape, though this particular doubt I later resolved when the same Mr. Coad, whom I mentioned earlier, came to see the two animals at Harrington Hall, and told me that they must come from the Indies: for in the Indies, the male grows tusks, while the female does not; however in the island of Ceylon none of the Elephants, either male or female, grows tusks, whereas in the Cape the male and the female both have tusks, though the females’ are no more than short things.
I used to puzzle as to how such large creatures as Elephants could be taken into captivity. Were they caught in nets? However it was done, it seemed to me, the matter must be extremely hazardous, for if the Elephant chose to resist capture, as it must, who could stand against it? I have since heard of the ways in which they are taken prisoner in the Indies.
The first is used to capture single male Elephants, which, said Mr. Coad, are known as tuskers. A tame female Elephant is sent into the jungle; when she finds a herd of wild Elephants, she makes advances to one of the tuskers, giving him caresses with her trunk until his desires are inflamed. As he responds to her advances, she artfully leads him away from his family into some quiet nook where, as he hopes, he will achieve a conquest, and with his mind thus engrossed two young natives creep up and slip a sort of rope round his hind legs. This they wind round some sturdy tree. The wily female now moves away from the tusker, who on discovering the restraints on his legs flies into a terrible frenzy, roaring and trumpeting shrilly, and attempting to recover his liberty. At length, after some hours, he seems to fall into a fit of despair, but the rage soon returns, and he roars again, and tries to rip up the ground with his tusks, and then again gives himself up to despair, and so on, for several days, until the cravings of hunger and thirst subdue his temper.
The second method is, I think, the one that must have been employed with the Elephants of which I now took charge. This method involves hundreds of natives, who form a wide circle round a grazing herd in the jungle. These natives are careful not to alarm the Elephants at first, but by lighting fires and brandishing torches, they gradually persuade the herd to move in a particular direction, that is, away from all the noise and clamour, and toward a specially prepared inclosure, known in the Hindoo tongue as a keddah. Sometimes it may take as long as a week before the herd reaches the keddah. This inclosure is formed of upright and transverse beams, which make a barricade, reinforced by a deep ditch, and is in truth a series of linked inclosures, the first being large, the second smaller, the third smaller still. The barricades are concealed by thorn and bamboo, but as the Elephants approach they often grow suspicious and attempt a retreat, whereupon they are met by banging gongs and shaking rattles. Once they enter the first inclosure, a gate is shut, and then they have no choice but to advance into the second inclosure, and again the gate is shut, and at last they arrive at the third. The Elephants by now being greatly alarmed, charge and rampage, but at every point they are repelled, and they gather in a sulky group, not knowing what to do, and here remain for a day, until a small door is opened, leading into a narrow passage. Food is thrown down, enticing one of the Elephants to enter, as he does so the door is shut. He tries to turn but there is not enough space, he tries to back out but the way is barred: he has no choice but to advance further and further, his mind whirling in terror and confusion, until he finds himself confined in a tight space. Here he is held by strong ropes, and here, while his rage subsides, that is, until it is subdued by hunger, he remains for a week or month, or longer, in the company of a man known as a mahoot, who will become his keeper for the rest of his life. This man never leaves the Elephant’s side, and takes care of his every need; so that the Elephant comes to depend upon him, understanding his commands and doing anything to please him. Indeed, the Elephant is the man’s slave, but there is this difference from many human slaves: that he serves willingly, lovingly, without questioning his position or feeling the least resentment: for, in the mind of the Elephant, his keeper, however poor or humble his station in human society, is a kind of God.
CHAPTER II (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
MY TWO Elephants (I had begun to think of them as mine, though they were the property of Mr. Harrington) were very pleased with each other’s company, and as a sign of their friendship they would entwine their trunks over the partition which divided their stables. Soon I began to feel more confident, and would let them use their trunks to explore what kind of creature I was, feeling round my neck, or my legs, or my head and face. It was a curious sensation to feel a waft of hot Elephant breath on my cheek or ear.
The stables in which the Elephants were housed faced east, and therefore received sunlight during the mornings only. One warm afternoon, I decided to let them into the yard. Being surrounded by brick walls, the yard was entirely secure, though as a precaution I tied ropes between each of their back and front legs. My heart beat as I bent under the trunks to tie the knots, but I made a shew of bravado; for them to have detected my apprehension would have been a great error. In the yard they passed a very pleasant two hours, after which I led them back to their stables. Martin and I then took a horse and cart over the bridge to the Corn Market in order to buy fresh provisions for our charges, but we had scarcely reached the Market when one of the maids came panting toward us, crying out that the Elephants had escaped and were running through the streets. Much alarmed, I hastened back to the house, where to my great relief I found both Elephants peacefully browsing on the small weeds which grew out of the cracks between the bricks. With the lure of a few sweet carrots, I was easily able to return them to the safety of their stables.
Since I had bolted both stable doors, it was a great puzzle as to how the Elephants had broken loose. I strongly suspected that Joshua must have set them free, but when I next saw the boy, he hotly protested his innocence. I confess that I was not entirely sure whether to believe him, which made him very cross; he stamped his foot and began to shout so loudly that Mrs. Harrington appeared and asked me what the matter was. When she heard that the Elephants had escaped, she tightened her lips and said that she had known it would happen. I promised her that they would never escape again; yet they succeeded in doing so on the very next day. I therefore set a trap, pretending to leave with the cart, but concealing myself in one of the horses’ stables, with a good view of those occupied by the Elephants. Nothing happened for several minutes; then the female, who had been watching to see whether she was observed, curled up her trunk, grasped the bolt that secured the door to her stable, and slid it back in one deft motion. The male did likewise, and both animals ambled out, very pleased with themselves; at which point, I sprang from my hiding place, and drove them back to their quarters. I secured each of the stable doors with a lock, which could only be opened with a key. Both Elephants made repeated efforts to pick their locks over the coming hours; when they failed, I felt triumphant. I have defeated you, I thought to myself. Yet, soon enough, I came back from the Corn Market to find them once again in the yard, and the stable doors lying flat on the ground, torn off their hinges. The Elephants, having given up the locks, had lit upon the simple expedient of backing themselves out of their stables. They eyed me with a kind of glee, which was not at all as innocent as it pretended to be, and I gave them a severe reprimand, telling them how strongly I disapproved of their actions. They would not meet my eyes and looked uneasily away.
After this incident, I had stronger doors made, with iron bars, but it was plain that the Elephants needed proper training. However, before I had got very far with this, there was another matter to consider. Mr. Harrington and his family were returning to Thornhill for the summer months, and the Elephants had to shift also. How to move them safely over thirty miles of country was an aukward question. Martin was in favour of putting them in the same stout wooden crates which had been used to move them from the quay, and transporting them by waggon; while I argued that they should travel on foot, with their legs chained. I doubted that we would be able to persuade them into the crates, which would surely remind them of the torments that they had endured on the voyage from the Indies; and I also doubted that, if they attempted to regain their freedom, the crates would hold. Mr. Harrington, however, agreed with Martin, pointing out that, since College Green lay on the west side of Bristol, and to the north of the river, our route would necessarily take us through the centre of the city, where the streets are very narrow, and that the Elephants would be certain to attract crowds of people, causing untold havock; moreover, even when we were outside the city and in the countryside, we could not be sure that they would not take fright and bolt across the open fields. The only safe course, therefore, was to transport them in the crates.
Several days before the journey was to take place, I placed the crates in the stable-yard, lining them with hay and hiding their appearance with rags and ivy. In spite of this disguise, the Elephants were not deceived; they were very wary of the open crates, and would not go near them. However, I gave them very little food, and by the third day, which was the day before we hoped to leave, the suspicions of the male had been overtaken by hunger, and he went into one of the crates and ate some hay. The female remained highly suspicious. Our difficulty was all the greater, in that the animals had to enter their crates at the same time; for, if the male saw the female being imprisoned, he would certainly take fright, and the same for the female.
Early on the morning of the journey, Martin and I had assembled a troop of helpers—some twenty strong men, from other houses on the Green—and while they stood by I laid a trail of carrots from the stables into the crates, which were piled with carrots. To my astonishment, this ruse worked as soon as I opened the stable doors; indeed it worked so quickly, both Elephants hurrying into their crates, that all of us were taken by surprize. The men rushed forward, ten to each Elephant, and held them there while iron bars were laid in place. When the Elephants understood that they had been tricked into captivity, they trumpeted in rage and distress, and I have no doubt that they would have broken out, but that the crates had been strengthened with bars, and that they were tightly confined, unable to turn or to swing their trunks. I should say here that people often believe that an Elephant’s tusks are its main weapon; whereas, in truth, the trunk is far more dangerous.
Without further ado, each of the crates was loaded on to a waggon, and tightly secured with ropes; then a team of four horses was put in the shafts.
Fortune favoured us thus far, but no further: for we had scarcely left the city of Bristol behind us when the clouds opened. The rain began to pour, and the roads were soon sticky with mud, and the Elephants made a heavy load. Moreover, the horses, though strong, were frightened by the presence of the Elephants, who kept up an intermittent bellowing and trumpeting. Their cries made me desperate to cover the thirty miles as quickly as possible, in order to release them from their confinement; but we made poor progress, and as we were struggling up a steep down near Cheddar, I wondered whether we would ever reach the top. The rain pelted, and the road, which was deeply rutted, ran in chalky torrents, and the horses strained and stumbled; we dismounted, but one horse puffed and blowed so badly I thought that she would drop. As we neared the top, we met a large herd of sheep being driven to market, and their baas and bleats persuaded the Elephants to trumpet even more loudly. In the midst of this cacophony, the shepherd shouted to ask what animals we had on our waggons; on hearing that they were Elephants, he seemed as amazed as if he had been told that they were dragons. The Elephants quietened after that; and when we reached an inn at Wells, where we gave our tired horses a bait, I peered into the crate containing the tusker. In the lines of light shining faintly through the cracks between the boards, he stood motionless, but I caught the gleam of an eye, and I had the impression that he was looking at me. The end of his trunk slid, and blew against the crack. Within her crate, the female was equally still. I imagined the distress in their minds, and their fear that they were about to be put on another ship.
Night had already fallen with the rain still heavy when we crawled into Thornhill, passing the cottage where my family lived. We turned into Mr. Harrington’s estate and drove to the stables behind the Hall. My father, whom I had not seen for over three months, was waiting with my fellow grooms, Bob Brown and Dick Shadwick. While they attended to the horses I prised open the crates, first that of the female, then that of the male. Both Elephants were dazed, and unsteady on their feet; they staggered toward each other through the puddles and bumped bodies; but I was relieved that they were alive. After I had given them a long draught of water, I led them into the cart-house, which it had been decided would be their new home. I would not allow any of the grooms, not even my father, to help, which caused some ill-feeling, but my main concern was with the comfort of the two Elephants.
Presently Mr. Harrington appeared, and with him was Joshua, carrying a lanthorn. The Elephants were standing side by side, and I remember how for one moment in the light held up by the little boy they seemed to shrink back, their trunks drooping from their faces, while their shadows flung against the rough whitewashed wall at the back of the cart-house merged to form a single dark shadow creature with a double trunk, which swayed and stretched to the slightest movement of the lanthorn. Mr. Harrington asked me how the Elephants did and I told him that they did very well, though they were greatly unsettled by the journey.
That night I slept with them at the cart-house. In the morning, I left them in the care of my father, and went to see my mother, whom I was glad to find in good health. She told me that my brother, despite his head-aches, had been given work in the gardens at Harrington Hall, and when I learnt this I felt very grateful to Mr. Harrington. However, she was frightened that I was in charge of two Elephants, and kept telling me to take care of myself, for, she cried out, wringing her hands, that she could not bear it if I were torn to pieces and eaten alive. From this remark I discovered that she believed Elephants to be animals of great ferocity, who used their vast tusks like swords to slaughter their prey, having been told as much by Mrs. Perry, a withered old woman who was one of our close neighbours in Thornhill. Since my mother held Mrs. Perry to be an infallible authority on all matters political, historical, geographical, moral and scientific, although in her entire life she had probably never ventured more than a dozen miles from Thornhill, I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her (my mother, that is) that, on the contrary, Elephants were gentle as cows, though ten times as intelligent, and ate only vegetable matter. When I invited her to see for herself, she said that she did not dare, it was more than her life was worth; she was sure that she would be eaten. With my father’s help, however, I prevailed on her to come. She gazed at the female, and then at the male, before saying, ‘Tom, if it is so gentle, why does it have tusks?’ This question has often puzzled me, and I confess that I do not know the answer. Although it may be that, in the wild, the tusks are sometimes used as weapons, I am sure that they are chiefly employed for peaceful purposes, digging for roots and unearthing shrubs and trees, in which service they are very valuable.
It was about this time that I gave names to the Elephants, just as I used to name certain horses when I was a boy. The male I named Timothy, after my own father, while the female I called Jenny, a name that I had always happened to like. However I did not tell anyone these names but kept them private, in case they exposed me to ridicule.
The rain having passed on, I allowed the Elephants out of the cart-house. At Harrington Hall, unlike in Bristol, the yard received sun for much of the day, and they enjoyed its heat, moving so that its rays angled on to the broad expanse of their grey backs. As they stood like this, with their back legs roped together, I took the opportunity to wash and scrub them, using a stiff brush, and this Jenny suffered me to do with great patience; however, when I came to Timothy, his trunk knocked the brush from my hands and tossed it toward his sister, and when I went to retrieve it, she flicked it away. This mischief shewed how far they had recovered their spirits after the journey from Bristol, and during the succeeding days they began to play any number of tricks. One of my daily tasks was to dig out the dung that had accumulated in the cart-house, taking it in a barrow to a large pit by the kitchen garden, while my father watched the Elephants to see that they behaved. (I may mention here that Elephant dung, being somewhat lighter and dryer than horse dung, is of great value in the garden.) When, after one of these trips, I returned to the yard, I heard my father shouting, and found that Timothy had seized the spade with his trunk, and was swinging it to and fro with such force that, had it connected with my father’s head, it might well have knocked out his brains. I reprimanded him in as severe a voice as I could muster, but he was annoyed, and sent the spade flying through the air. I pretended to be very angry, and slapped his flank with the palm of my hand, an action which hurt me a great deal more than it can have hurt him.
It was clear that I needed to press on with their training, and I began to teach them certain signs and sounds. They regarded me attentively, for when they did well I praised them loudly and rewarded them with carrots or fruit. When they did badly, I shook my head and reproved them by wagging a finger, but this was seldom necessary. They learnt quickly, much more quickly than horses; indeed, it was remarkable how fast we went, so much so that I often wondered whether they had not already received some training in the Indies. One reason for their speed was that they imitated each other. While they watched me, awaiting the next order, and often anticipating it before it was given, they also watched each other.
Within a matter of days they were willing to walk forward, to stop, to turn to the left and right, and to walk backward. I then taught them to kneel. Among the differences between horses and Elephants is that, while a horse has three bones in its leg, an Elephant has only two; thus the horse, when kneeling, brings his hind legs under his body, while the Elephant lets his go before him, like a human being.
All this training I did either in the cart-house or in the yard, and all the time I kept their front and back legs roped. In addition, I made a kind of harness, which I attached to their upper bodies, tying it under their bellies and drawing it between their front legs.
My next step was to teach them to lie down. This proved more difficult, for although Elephants will lie down to sleep at night, for an hour or two, this runs counter to their natural inclinations, which are to stay on their feet; for when on the ground they cannot rise quickly to their feet and are all but defenceless, unable to use their tusks or trunks to defend themselves against any enemies. For this reason it took many hours of teaching before I could persuade them to do my bidding. I took care never to shew my emotions but to remain entirely patient, in the certainty that my will would in the end prove the greater, as eventually proved the case. It was Jenny who first yielded, dropping to her knees and tilting her body to one side so that she fell, crumpling, to the ground; whereupon I praised her loudly and rewarded her with food, and the sight of this convinced Timothy to do likewise. As they lay in the dusty yard, breathing slowly, with the spring sun on their bodies, I felt a great sense of satisfaction that two such creatures, the most powerful beasts in the animal kingdom, should have bowed to my will; and also some regret that neither my father nor my fellow grooms, who were busy exercising the horses, had witnessed this singular event. The succeeding day I took care to repeat the feat when Bob and Dick were watching, hoping to impress them mightily, but to my disappointment they said nothing and feigned complete indifference.
However, when I gave a demonstration of the Elephants’ progress to Mr. Harrington, he expressed his astonishment and pleasure. ‘But, Tom,’ he went on, ‘you should not be doing this alone. Each Elephant should surely have his own groom. Why is Martin not helping? Or Dick?’—‘Sir,’ I said, feeling somewhat uneasy, ‘it is easier by myself. The Elephants prefer a single keeper.’—‘They do, do they? Both of them? They have clearly expressed their preference for a single keeper?’—‘Yes, Sir. And my father helps me.’—‘If you say so,’ said Mr. Harrington, who was perhaps a little surprized, ‘but pray, Tom, how have they expressed this preference?’—‘Sir,’ I said, ‘they refuse to obey the other grooms. They will not obey them.’—‘They will not obey them?’—‘No, Sir. They refuse. They pretend to be deaf. They will only obey me.’
While this was true enough, it was also true that none of my fellow grooms ever attempted to make friends with the Elephants, or ever offered them any tokens of affection. At the time, I could not easily understand this, but now I think that it derived partly from fear, and partly from resentment at the extent to which the Elephants drew attention away from the horses. Mr. Harrington made no secret of the fact that he was more interested in the Elephants than the horses. My father, moreover, being head groom, felt that the Elephants disrupted the smooth running of the stable-yard. Here I should also mention the curious antipathy which exists between horses and Elephants. Even before the horses in Mr. Harrington’s stables had seen the two Elephants, they smelt them; and, not liking what they smelt, became agitated. They were more difficult to handle; they stamped, and neighed, and these symptoms became all the more pronounced when the Elephants began to squeal and trumpet. Soon enough, the horses set eyes on the Elephants, and this frightened them so much that several sweated and shivered uncontrollably, and refused to eat. It seems that all horses are frightened of Elephants. Quite why there is such antipathy is not for me to say, but there is a fixity, an intensity, in an Elephant’s beady stare which strikes terror into the heart of the bravest horse.
After this conversation, Mr. Harrington seemed to accept that I should be sole keeper of the Elephants; at least, he never mentioned the matter again. For this, I believe, I have to thank Mr. Coad, who visited the Elephants, and who told Mr. Harrington of the personal attachments which, in the Indies, form between Elephants and their mahoots. Indeed Mr. Coad, when talking to Mr. Harrington, always referred to me by this curious word, mahoot.
Mr. Coad was a gentleman of middle age, originally from Lancashire, and his character was plainly expressed by the rugged, wrinkled appearance of his face, somewhat like that of an ancient bulldog. When he delivered his opinion on any matter concerning the Elephants—which he generally did with his legs astride, and hands on his hips—he did so in a tone which seemed to say that anyone foolish enough to challenge him should expect a sharp bite. Nonetheless, much of what he had to say I found very interesting indeed.
In the Indies, he said, the Elephants were employed by the princely rulers to execute criminals, which they accomplished by trampling their bodies, or breaking their limbs, or impaling them on their tusks, according to the direction of their mahoots. At the invitation of the Prince of Udaipur, Mr. Coad had witnessed the execution of a man who had been found guilty of ravishing a young girl. Hands tied behind his back, eyes blind-folded, he knelt on the dusty ground and awaited his fate, while the Elephant, a tusker, slowly advanced with its mahoot on its neck. It halted before the kneeling man and, at a word of command, lashed out with its trunk. The guilty man fell, uttering a single cry, which was promptly silenced as the Elephant stood on him with one of its fore-feet and crushed his chest. As an act of completion, the Elephant swept the body into the air, raising it to a height of six or seven feet, before dashing it to the ground and driving a tusk through the neck. At this point the execution was over; the tusker backed away, and the relations of the dead man were allowed to claim the body. What was impressive, said Mr. Coad, was the solemn manner in which this execution was carried out, the Elephant obeying his mahoot’s instructions to the letter, and acting, so far as he could judge, as the perfect agent of human justice. ‘It is infinitely preferable to the sordid hangings that we have in England,’ he told Mr. Harrington. This account of the execution haunted me for many nights, and sometimes haunts me even now: I picture the kneeling man, I enter his mind and hear the slow tread of the approaching Elephant, like the approach of Death itself, and I listen with terror for the faint swish of the trunk, the last sound that I shall ever hear.
In the Indies, said Mr. Coad, it is considered a great honour for an Elephant to be appointed an executioner. Other Elephants work in such tasks as plowing, pulling carriages and hauling heavy loads of wood and rock, much like draught horses and oxen in England, though the loads they draw are far heavier. A token of their great strength is that they sometimes also help with the launching of ships.
Other pieces of intelligence, which may be of interest to the reader, are as follows:
That, when wild, Elephants feed chiefly on grass, leaves, bark and fruit; among their favourite foods being a crescent-shaped fruit with a tough green skin, known as a banana;
That wild Elephants sometimes break into the corn fields, committing terrible ravages, and have to be driven out by the natives;
That Elephants have long memories, and if subject to injury or insult will look to revenge themselves, even for years afterward;
That, when Elephants come to mate, they do so with the utmost secrecy, retiring to a dense thicket; which is a sign of their great modesty; and that after mating, both animals retire to the nearest body of water, to wash themselves;
That the period of time necessary for a mahoot to train an Elephant is generally reckoned to be between six months and one year;
That the females are more tractable than the males; however, both sexes are subject to abrupt fluctuations in mood, in which Elephants who have always displayed gentleness will, without warning, turn angry and stubborn;
That, in the Indies, unlike in the Cape, the Elephants are never shot for their ivory, however, when a male proves unruly or wayward, his tusks may be sawn off;
That this operation, which would seem impossible, is accomplished after letting the Elephant drink quantities of the local liquor, which quickly reduce him to a state of utter insensibility.
Mr. Coad went on to tell Mr. Harrington that, in the Indies, the mahoots were able to enforce their rule over their charges by employing an iron spike, known as an ankus, and he strongly advised me to get myself such a spike. He said that at the root of all obedience was fear; this principle was universal, and had equal application to the government of human society, for if people did not fear their rulers, it was in their natures to rebel. Mr. Harrington said that this was undoubtedly true: ‘Tom, you must have one of these spikes.’ I asked Mr. Coad how the spike was used, and he said the mahoot would either press the point into the skin on the back of the Elephant’s ear, or bring it down more or less hard on the skull. A blow which would split open a man’s head, said Mr. Coad, was, to an Elephant, which has a skull like a rock, no more than a light tap of remonstrance.
At his and Mr. Harrington’s urging, I did get myself such a spike, which I used a few times, though I felt a reluctance to use it over-much, believing that it were generally better to work by consent than fear, and so to expel the elements of ferocity in their natures. This is true of all animals, that they may easily be ruined by harsh treatment at a young age. A dog savagely beaten as a puppy lives the rest of its life in a kind of cringing terror. A fine, mettlesome young horse, whipped and lashed into subjection, loses its spirit and becomes a worthless jade. I found that merely by wearing the ankus on a string round my neck, so that the Elephants could see it, was generally enough to persuade them into obedience.
Early one day in May, I was sufficiently confident to lead the Elephants out of the yard and into the grounds. It was a fine sunny day, and, although I kept their legs roped, they frisked and rolled on their backs, very like horses or cattle which have been confined all winter. My pleasure in watching them was tinged with apprehension that, when I ordered them back to the stables, they would ignore me; however, at a single clap of my hands, they turned attentively, and, at another clap, they rambled toward me.
Encouraged by their obedience, I made the experiment of taking the Elephants to an old copse which lay on the side of a hill, about a mile from the Hall. I led them on ropes attached to their harnesses. At the start, we walked along the track in a leisurely fashion, the Elephants feeding on the vegetation on either side, but as we drew near the copse they scented what lay ahead and quickened their pace, so that I found myself forced into a run. The hazels in the copse were in new leaf, while the ground was thick with blue-bells, and the air full of perfume. Greatly excited, and making little squeals and rumbles of pleasure, the Elephants grazed through the blue-bells, their trunks flying out to latch on to hazel branches, which they dragged and tore down and stuffed into their mouths. Throstles and other birds sang loudly, and the sun shone in lances through the leaves. It was now that I first saw Timothy use his tusk in the way that I have already described, driving it deep into the soil to lever up a young oak.
Among the blue-bells were many thin paths, made by badgers, and presently the Elephants found their sets, which had lately been dug out, with fresh mounds of earth heaped outside the entrances, and scattered blue-bells (which badgers use to line their homes). Timothy and Jenny sniffed loudly at the entrances to the holes, no doubt scenting the badgers, and making strong noises of disgust—indeed, they inserted their trunks a small distance down the holes—I, meanwhile, felt a fresh anxiety, lest the ground, having been mined, might collapse under the weight of the Elephants. I called them to me, and we moved down a slope where the blue-bells gave way to a snowy spread of ramsons. The Elephants’ feet squeaked on the leaves, crushing them and making them smell strongly. However, instead of feeding on the ramsons, the Elephants hurried through them, making for a pond surrounded by willow and rush, and well known to me as a particular haunt of toads. As a boy, in late winter, I often used to visit it to collect the neck-laces of their spawn, or to watch the chaotic frenzy of their mating, when twenty or more glistening males would struggle to clamber on one unfortunate female. Now, in early summer, the pond was full of young toads, and as the Elephants waded in they swam frantically out of the way, while moor-hen scuttled for the cover of the rushes, and a pair of duck took flight. Having scooped up quantities of foul-smelling mud, which they splattered on their backs and flanks, the Elephants began to squirt water at each other in great jets, using their trunks like cannons. The sun made rainbows through the spray, and the mud dribbled down their flanks. They were like unruly children, and indeed as they wrestled with their trunks, or pushed, heads locked together, each heaving to dislodge the other and grunting with the strain, I thought that they were like human children in Elephant form.
When, at length, I clapped my hands and summoned them out of the pond, they declined to hear, and continued with their sport. I shouted threats, and even brandished the ankus. They pretended not to notice, and this angered me, for I could think of no easy way to force them out of the water unless I myself waded in, which with the mud smelling so foul I was loath to do. I was obliged to wait for upwards of an hour while they wallowed and splashed away. In the end I resorted to cunning, concealing myself behind a tree, and in their curiosity to discover my whereabouts they splashed out of the water. Having caught their ropes, I gave the Elephants a severe reprimand, and though either could have knocked me down with the twitch of a trunk they heard me out and seemed to shrink back and repent. As we left the copse, we met a party of wood-men, whose alarm at the sight of two dripping, mud-soaked Elephants, draped in green weed, was so great that they flung down their tools and took to their heels.
We made many subsequent visits to this spot and I never again had any difficulty in making the Elephants leave the water; in part, I think, because I used to reward them with sugar or a carrot, but also because they were anxious not to incur my displeasure. The wood-men grew to understand the innocent and peaceable character of the Elephants, and as word of our trips spread through the neighbourhood we often had company in the shape of boys and girls, who would run ahead or follow us, flitting through the trees, or peeping from a tree trunk, caught between apprehension and curiosity. A few children were bold enough to come closer; among these was a little maid no more than five years old, who approached very timidly one day. At her approach, Jenny and Timothy raised their heads, staring, so I signalled to them to stand still and walked over to the maid, who was holding some dry sticks of wood. Her name was Margaret Porter; she was the daughter of Robert Porter, a wheelwright. When I asked her if she knew what these great creatures were called, she shook her head. I said, ‘They are called Elephants and they are very noble and wise creatures, who come from far away across the sea.’ She put down her sticks and bravely took my hand and we walked toward the two Elephants, who were side by side. ‘Are you not at all afraid?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied, though she held my hand very tightly. To her they must have seemed as lofty as the giants which Gulliver meets in the land of Brobdingnag. I said to the Elephants, ‘May I present you my very good friend, Margaret?’ and two trunks slid through the air and began to explore her head and arms with the utmost politeness. She hardly knew, I think, whether to laugh or cry; at first she giggled, and then, forgetting her sticks, ran off as fast as her legs could take her. But she came back on other days, and soon became a favourite with the Elephants.
Another of their favourites was Lizzy Tindall, a girl of my own age who lived in Thornhill. She was the daughter of the tanner, George Tindall. As children, we had sometimes walked together to the school-house in Gillerton, where she had a great reputation for mischief-making; this grew from the occasion when, having cut off her hair and rubbed mud into her face, she deceived the school-master, old Mr. Gibbons, into thinking that she was a gipsy boy. Here she was successful, but on another occasion, when she claimed to have seen an angel standing in the churchyard, she was soundly whipped for lying. Now she was employed in the Hall as a maid, or spider-brusher, as she called herself, which she found much less entertaining, and when she had time she would steal away, to chat with the grooms or stroke the horses, or to feed sugar to the Elephants. There was always a good supply of sugar in the kitchens, and since they loved it even more than carrots they became very affectionate toward her; indeed on one occasion Timothy became too forward, his trunk slipping from Lizzy’s neck into her bosom. She drew my attention to what he was doing, whereupon I told her to push the trunk out of the way, which she did, pat pat, but soon enough, back came the trunk. ‘Tom!’ she cried, ‘is this not deliberate! What a saucy Elephant!’ Indeed he was perfectly innocent and had no idea of the liberty which he was taking, and I said so; whereupon she tossed her hair (which, when she took off her cap, now hung half way down her back), and laughed, ‘I am not so sure, look at him! Look, Tom!’ and it was true that the Elephant continued to rout round. But there was a reason for this, as I soon discovered, which was that she had hidden a piece of sugar in her bosom, to test him out.
While the Elephants held Lizzy and Margaret as particular friends, there were other people whom they regarded less favourably. Among these were my fellow grooms, Bob Brown and Dick Shadwick. I had once been on good terms with Dick, who was my elder by no more than three years, but since the arrival of the Elephants he seemed to have turned against me. At the time my voice had not yet broken and was still piping and shrill, and whenever he met me he would squeak like a mouse. This feeble joke afforded him vast quantities of amusement. I ignored him, but I could not stand idly by when he and Bob persecuted the Elephants. Bob used to divert himself by tossing the Elephants stones or pebbles, and sometimes they were deceived enough to take these offerings into their mouths, though they would generally spit them out soon enough. When I asked him to stop, he laughed. ‘If they are foolish enough to eat stones, let them do so,’ he said, and this filled me with indignation, for my father had often told me of a race-horse which had choaked after it was purged with too large a ball. The ball had lodged deep in the horse’s gullet, and all efforts to retrieve it with an iron instrument having failed, the animal suffered a miserable death.
I found that my father did not greatly want to hear about Bob’s behaviour, and indeed he attempted to dismiss it as a mere prank, whereupon I interrupted, ‘Father, a prank that could end with the death of the Elephants.’—‘Well,’ said he, with great reluctance, for he hated arguments, ‘I will talk with him.’ My father went and talked to Bob. A short time later, Bob came up to me: ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘forgive me—I am sorry for the stones—and to shew this I should like to give the Elephants an apple each.’ There was a mocking smile on his face, and before I could prevent him he had held out two small green apples. Both Elephants took their apples and put them in their mouths; but while Timothy ground his to pulp, Jenny spat hers out and with it a nail. I was very angry and told Bob what a fool he was. ‘A fool?’ says he, sneering, ‘who are you to call me a fool? A stable-boy!’ I said that, if the Elephants were to die as a result of his apples, he would be the fool, and that, if he did such a thing again, I would tell Mr. Harrington. I had disliked him for years, ever since I had seen him set the tail of a dog on fire. Making animals suffer was one of his favourite sports. He often tormented frogs and toads, and I heard that he once poured a bottle of aniseed over the back of a cat when the hounds were running, and they clapped on the drag and tore it to shreds.
One thing which I learnt from Mr. Coad was that, in the Indies, the captive Elephants were regularly ridden like horses, and I was resolved to try my luck in this respect, though the difficulties seemed formidable, and I could not imagine how it was done. None of the horses’ saddles was broad enough for an Elephant’s back, and mounting only seemed possible if the Elephant were to kneel or lie down, or to stand still while a ladder was placed against its side. What perplexed me most was how the rider, once perched aloft, directed his steed. Horses, with their sensitive mouths, are directed largely by means of the bit and bridle and the reins, and perhaps, I said to myself, Elephants equally have sensitive mouths, but it would take a strange bit and bridle to fit on an Elephant. Even if such a bridle could be fitted, looping under the trunk, and even if the Elephant were willing to accept the bit, would anyone hauling on the reins be strong enough to steer such a powerful beast? I had the ankus as a means of chastisement, but what if the Elephant were so maddened by the rider’s presence on its back that it chose to charge away? What if it chose to unseat its rider by rolling on to its back, as horses do when they do not like being mounted? To be rolled upon by an Elephant would surely be fatal. I thought a little further, and saw that an Elephant, if it so wished, might use its trunk to knock the rider from the saddle. My father, with whom I talked this over, felt that the venture was too dangerous to be hazarded; however, I secretly decided to disregard his advice.
With this in mind, I made a rough saddle out of ropes, and fastened it on Jenny’s back, tying it under her stomach. Although she submitted to this readily enough, within a few minutes her trunk was feeling over the knot and soon enough she had it untied. I tied it again, this time much more firmly, and when she attempted to undo it she failed; but Timothy proceeded to untie it for her. This is no good, I said to myself, and tied it once more, this time with the tightest of knots. Next I made a sign telling her to kneel, which she did, and I was able to climb on—although, as I clung on her back, I found myself unable to make her stand up. ‘Stand up! Stand up!’ She remained kneeling, for in my foolishness I had forgotten that she could only obey me when she could see me.
I therefore had to teach my Elephants to understand human speech, by which I mean not the full range of speech, merely particular words and phrases. Again they were excellent pupils, listening to me with great attention, much as a young dog, anxious to please, will cock his ears and listen to every sound which falls from his master’s lips. Within a month I felt ready to hazard another attempt at riding. This time Jenny rose, and now I was eight or ten feet high, leaning over the ridges of her spine, clutching at ropes, and with my legs splayed horribly by the breadth of her back. Bob and Dick were watching; so was Lizzy, who cried up anxiously asking me if I was all right, and I was about to reply when Bob rammed a hot iron into Jenny’s fundament, whereupon she began to lumber forward. Being unable to grip with my legs, as one would grip a horse, and with the saddle not altogether as secure as I had thought it to be, I lost my balance, and slid over the cliff of her back. Though I put my hands out to break my fall, the pain travelled up my arms and into my elbows. As I lay on the ground, Lizzy rounded on Bob, saying that I might have broke my neck, but he laughed in her face; not for long, however, because Timothy, who had been eyeing these events, swung his trunk and knocked him sprawling. He picked himself up and went away cursing and vowing revenge. I was grateful to Timothy for administering such a swift rebuke; but my elbows hurt, and within half an hour my right elbow was swelling. I tried, that is, I endeavoured, to make light of the pain, by pretending that it was merely a bruise, but that night I could scarcely sleep, and I knew that I must have broke a bone in my elbow. While it healed I supported it by means of a cloth knotted round my neck.
When Mr. Harrington heard of my failure, he wrote to Mr. Coad, who kindly drew a sketch of Elephant-riding in the Indies. It shewed a male Elephant, with long tusks, walking in a grove of palm trees. This Elephant was carrying an entire company of passengers, seated in a wooden platform like a broad boat. Such platforms are known in the Hindoo as howdars. In the sketch, the Elephant’s keeper, the mahoot, was seated not on the howdar but on his neck, with his bare feet propped on the bony curves of the Elephant’s ears. This was such an obvious solution to my difficulties that I cursed myself for not thinking of it before and, in spite of the pain in my arm, I took off my shoes and then and there climbed on to Jenny’s neck. I found that, at the narrow junction of the neck, my position was wonderfully comfortable and secure. I could, like the mahoot, rest my feet on her ears, or, if I preferred, I could drop my feet and brace myself with my legs against the sides of her neck. When, by chance, she put down her head, I felt myself in danger of pitching forward and sliding down her trunk, but this was a danger to which I soon accustomed myself; and from this point on I rode the Elephants every day, and what was marvellous and almost incredible, found that I could control them well enough without use of bits or bridles, whips or spurs, or of the ankus, merely by the power of speech.
CHAPTER III (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
DURING the second summer which the Elephants spent at Harrington Hall we had a period of very hot dry weather which lasted over a month and half. This both pleased and displeased the farmers, for while it helped ripen the corn it was torture to the sheep on the downs, and their thin cries of distress filled the air. Every pond having shrunk to nothing but a muddy stew, I took the Elephants through the corn-fields to a river about three miles away. The river was shallow, the water coming no more than half way up the Elephants’ legs, but they played in it for many joyful hours, shooting water at each other and hauling up quantities of weed, which they flung high in the air.
There came a day of thunder, heard at a distance of many miles, but drawing steadily closer. Now the Elephants became restive, flapping their ears to keep off the clouds of thunder-flies which plagued their eyes, and as the sky darkened, and the growls and rumbles of thunder grew louder, I put them in the cart-house. I attempted to soothe their emotions by talking in a soft voice and stroking their trunks. No animal likes thunder, and the horses were also anxious, while all the birds fell silent. Flashes lit the sky, and the first huge drops began to splash down; then, after a brief pause, when the storm seemed to draw breath, the rain fell in a torrent, pounding the roof of the cart-house with a deafening noise and spurting as it hit the ground. On a sudden the door flew open and in burst Lizzy, her hair dripping. I gave her a horse-blanket to wrap round her shoulders and sat beside her on a heap of straw. ‘You do not mind me being here?’ she inquired, squeezing her hair and looking at me with her dark eyes.—‘Not at all, why should I? How is Mrs. Harrington today?’—‘Mrs. Harrington has bought herself a new dress and is very pleased with herself,’ she said, and took off her shoes. ‘O, I am soaked! How dark it is! How is your elbow?’—‘My elbow?’ I was surprized; I had forgotten my elbow. ‘It is mended, but still a little stiff.’ I bent it slowly, while she watched; then she drew back her sleeve and shewed her own arm, which was very soft and fair in comparison to mine. Her hair dripped on to my arm, and she brushed it off, and let her hand linger on my arm, and then I thought that I should kiss her, indeed that she would like me to kiss her; but I was too shy, and afraid that, if I did, she would make some joke at my expense. Even so, I might have plucked up courage and kissed her, but the Elephants chose to interrupt us, their trunks sliding over our shoulders and joining our hands. The storm continued for more than an hour; when it was at an end, a band of brilliant yellow light shone from under the dark cloud which was moving away to the east. I let the Elephants into the yard, and they splashed and trampled through the puddles with great relish.
This storm was one of the very few times that I saw the Elephants agitated. Although they started at loud noises, for instance when pheasants burst from the undergrowth, or ring doves clattered with smacking wings from the thickets, they were for the most part very placid and even-tempered. However, on one occasion, when we were riding along a track, Timothy came to an abrupt halt and gave a sharp trumpet. At the same moment he stiffened his trunk and pointed: upon which I, leaning over his head and following its line, saw a large viper coiled in the bracken. I urged him on, but he would not budge, nor would Jenny, who was following close behind, and we had to wait until the viper, perhaps conscious of danger, uncoiled itself and slid away. I conclude from this, that both Elephants knew, either by a kind of instinct or because they had seen snakes in the Indies, that snakes were poisonous, which was remarkable, though even more remarkable, to my mind, was that whenever we passed that same spot, both Elephants remembered the viper and checked stride to see whether it was still there.
In the autumn we sometimes met herds of village pigs, rooting for mast. The Elephants did not like pigs, and would hurl pieces of wood, or stones at them, with great accuracy and force. These pigs soon learnt to avoid us, and whenever we drew near would flee in squealing terror. There were also occasions when we unexpectedly encountered horses. On a day of hard frost, as we were walking through a field of bean stubble, we heard the sound of the chase, and presently the hounds came pouring toward us, hot on the drag and barking furiously. They streamed past, pursued by the horses with their riders who, as always, were shouting and tally-hoing in a state of great excitement. Neither of the Elephants was in the least disturbed by the commotion; but one black mare, upon seeing the Elephants, was so unnerved that it shied and threw its rider, a heavily built gentleman by the name of Dr. Chisholm. Dr. Chisholm lived in Gillerton; he was well known both for his love of food and for his fiery temper. His foot now being caught in the stirrup, he was dragged some way through the mire before the horse came to a halt. Picking himself up, he turned on me in a fury, what the d-v-l did I mean parading my d—ned Elephants here, getting in the way of the chase, etc.—I respectfully replied that I was sorry, I had not known that the chase would be coming this way, to which Dr. Chisholm retorted that in that case I must be deaf. He remounted and galloped off.
I was a good deal troubled by this matter, and feared that Dr. Chisholm would complain to Mr. Harrington. I heard no more of it. However, before long, I had occasion to remember the incident and to wonder about its consequences.
The whole of January 1768 was exceedingly cold, with a bitter north wind, and heavy falls of snow. Every morning, as my father and I walked from Thornhill to the Hall, we came upon the bodies of thrushes and blackbirds frozen stiff, and every evening the sun, sinking through a trench of violet, seemed the colour of blood. Several of the horses having fallen ill with a contagious distemper, I became afraid for the safety of the Elephants who, without the protection of a coat of hair, or fur, were exposed to the full rigour of the cold; and though I kept them in the cart-house, and wrapped them in horse-blankets, they were listless and miserable. I could understand the depression of their spirits, for they were used to the heat of the Indies. When the cold deepened, a fine powdery snow blowing through the edges of the door, I lit two small stoves, though it worried me perpetually that the Elephants might accidentally knock a stove over, and set fire to the straw. For this reason I stayed with them all night, rising from my bed to stoke the fires, or to give the embers a puff with the bellows.
My father confidently expected the weather to change with the new moon, which fell I think sometime after the middle of the month, and indeed there began a thaw shortly afterward; however, soon the cold returned harder than ever, with the same piercing wind. Mr. Harrington had not gone to Bristol, for Mrs. Harrington was about to give birth; and I remember that, to test the depth of the cold, he carried out an experiment, placing three glasses of different liquids in the open air: the glass of water froze in six minutes, hard enough to bear a five shilling piece upon it; the glass of port wine froze in two hours, and the glass of brandy in six hours. By now this persistent weather was becoming a serious matter for farmers, even worse than the summer’s drought. Mr. Harrington’s barns were well provisioned with hay, but many farmers had little or no hay left and could not afford to buy more, prices being so high; moreover, in the fields the turnips had frozen to solid blocks, which left the sheep without food. People prayed for milder weather, however when the thaw came, in the middle of February, the turnips had rotted in the ground and were pulpy and worthless, and many sheep died of starvation.
Before this thaw both Elephants did fall ill, as I had feared. The first to sicken was Timothy, whom I found with his head hanging and eyes closed, and when I offered him a carrot he declined. Soon Jenny too fell ill, and when both animals lay down, I became very afraid that they had lain down to die. With my father’s help I opened their mouths, and poured cordials of milk, peppermint and honey down their throats. The horses had been bled, as a matter of course, and my father was in favour of bleeding the Elephants; a suitable vein, he believed, lay in the roots of each ear. I was reluctant to bleed, for fear that it would be impossible to stanch the flow; however, my father urging strongly, I gave way. We bled Timothy first, and hit the vein at once. The blood was dark and very rich, and we succeeded in drawing off a full three pints of blood. When we came to Jenny, the first blow missed the vein but struck with the second, and though her blood was less rich and flowed sluggishly we took two pints. I should mention here the old story that the blood of an Elephant is colder than that of any other animal, but this is entirely untrue, it is as warm as that of a horse.
After this, there was little more that we could do. My father left, but I stayed with them. Sometimes I rested my hand against one or other of their chests to feel that their great hearts were still thundering away, and sometimes I talked to them, which, while helping them not at all, seemed to relieve my anxiety. To keep out the chill I let no one into the cart-house save for my father and Mr. Harrington, and Joshua, who made me kneel and say another prayer on their behalf.
Soon after their recovery, my father fell ill. First, he complained of pains shooting through his legs, next, that he was hot and giddy. Since he had always enjoyed good health, I was surprized but not greatly concerned, for, as I say, I was still thinking of the Elephants. He went home and, taking to his bed, sank into a fever. This being the middle of the day, my mother became very alarmed, and began to think of fetching the doctor—the same Dr. Chisholm whom I mentioned earlier—however, before doing so, she consulted Mrs. Perry, as she did on every matter. Mrs. Perry bustled up and, looking at my father, declared that the fever was not serious, she would stake her life on it being no more than a severe cold with a touch of ague. All this I had from Jim, my brother, who was at home, for in such weather there was little to be done in the gardens. As the afternoon wore on, my father continued to decline, and in the evening, despite Mrs. Perry’s repeated reassurances, my mother sent my brother through the snow to Gillerton, where Dr. Chisholm lived. Dr. Chisholm being at table, Jim was told to wait. More than two hours passed before Dr. Chisholm appeared—patting his mouth with a napkin—to ask what the matter was. My brother told him.—‘And what is your father’s name? Ah yes—he is the father of the Elephant keeper, is he not? Well, let us hope he is not ill with the dreaded Elephant Fever. I cannot come now, young man, but I shall come to him later.’
My brother returning home, gave this message to my mother: ‘Dr. Chisholm is coming later.’—‘But could he not come at once?’—‘No, he is at table, but he will come later. He says that Father may have Elephant Fever.’ My mother, very frightened, cried out, ‘What is that?’ Upon which my brother told her, that it was a special disease which human beings caught from Elephants.
Since I had stayed the night at the cart-house, I knew none of this; however, shortly before day-break, Jim appeared, and told me that I must come home at once, bringing a piece of one of Timothy’s tusks. It seems that Mrs. Perry now believed my father would only be saved if he were given a medicinal potion made of powdered tusk. This was utter folly, I did not believe a word of it; even if it were true, Timothy would not have stood idly by and allowed me to saw off his tusk. Jim then mentioned that, as he had returned through the snow from Gillerton, he had been followed by a light. I asked, what sort of light; he did not know, but it was a dancing light, like a will o’ the wisp. I said to myself, it is probably no more than the frozen crust of snow glistening in the light of the young moon; but I knew that Jim believed it to be an omen of our father’s death.
I hurried home. My father lay in the icy bed-room, and while my mother moaned and shook, Mrs. Perry held sway, muttering spells and incantations. ‘I knew it would happen. The Elephants! The Elephants! Where is the tusk?’ When I said that I had not brought any tusk, my mother begged me to run back and fetch some, for my father’s life hung by a thread. I told her that I could not do so, that the Elephant was the property of Mr. Harrington; whereupon she cried out that I must ask Mr. Harrington. I did what I could to calm her and then attended to my father, who was burning hot, and in the absence of Dr. Chisholm, who had still not visited, I resolved to bleed him. Having fetched a knife, I laid bare his arm. ‘It will do no good!’ cried Mrs. Perry, ‘he has Elephant Fever!’ and my mother wailed that I was not a doctor, that we must wait for the doctor. ‘For how long? We cannot wait,’ I said.—‘We must wait!’—‘But if we wait—the longer we wait—we cannot wait.’
We waited a few minutes, during which I felt my father’s pulse, which was running very fast and intermittent, and I then said that I did not think we should delay any longer, that he must be bled, and I stretched out his arm. However, my mother cried out, ‘O! I hear him! O! He is come!’ running to the window and scratching at the frost flakes; but she was mistaken. ‘O Tom you must go and fetch him!’—‘But Jim has been!’—‘Then where is he? Why has he not come? Why? O! O!’ for my poor father had given a kind of low groan, and she flung herself in agonies over the bed. ‘O! Timothy! You must not leave me! You must not!’ As I stood back, knife in hand, I noticed Jim’s wan face and wondered whether, when he had spoken to Dr. Chisholm, he had conveyed with sufficient force the desperate nature of my father’s condition. Yet there was another suspicion which crossed my mind, that the doctor had decided to ignore my father’s illness, on account of what had happened with the Elephants when he was hunting. However, this may be to do Dr. Chisholm an injustice, for he did indeed arrive at the cottage about noon, though by then it was too late. It seems that he had been urgently called to attend to a gentleman by the name of Mr. Rogers, who had slipped in the snow and bruised an ankle.
I will pass over the melancholy details of my father’s death. His burial had to be delayed for two weeks, the ground being as hard as stone, even a pick would not penetrate it; during this period he lay stiff and frozen in his bed. My poor mother was greatly distracted and would not enter the room on any account; nor would she allow a single fire to be lit in the cottage, despite the extreme cold, and when Jim and I came to carry him down the stairs, she cried, ‘O, do not hurt him!’ After the burial, she begged me not to go on working any longer with the Elephants, for fear that I would catch the same deadly Elephant Fever. Indeed, she was certain that I would catch it. She said, through her tears, that she had known from the beginning that the Elephants were dangerous and that no good would come of them; for an angel had warned Mrs. Perry in a dream, and Mrs. Perry had warned my mother, and my mother had warned me and my father, but neither of us would pay any heed, and now the best husband anyone had ever had was dead and cold, and I would die too, that was all but certain, and she would be left with Jim, who was no help to anyone, and she did not know what she would do. I attempted to reassure her; but she was deaf to all consolation, crying out that it did not matter what happened to her, since she would not be alive for much longer.
The story that the Elephants had been the cause of my father’s death was quickly spread by wagging tongues; chiefly, no doubt, that belonging to Mrs. Perry, but by others too; so that for a time it was generally believed that even to go near the Elephants was dangerous, while to breathe in a single particle of their breaths (which, in the frosty air, billowed from their mouths in clouds) was fatal. They were seen as walking contagions, and shunned by everyone but me; indeed I was also widely shunned, with people saying that, if I had only cut off a piece of Timothy’s tusk, my father would still be alive, and that I could not have loved him enough. This was a most unjust charge, for I had loved my father as faithfully as any son could have done. I was greatly troubled on my own account, but also on that of the Elephants: when I looked at them and indeed, when they looked at me, with their sad, wrinkled eyes, I felt a kind of horror. How will you survive, I thought, with such a deadly reputation? At the same time, there was something that made me doubt—not that Elephant Fever existed, but that it could have led to my father’s death. I questioned my brother Jim, who repeated to me the exact words used by Dr. Chisholm: ‘Let us hope he is not ill with the dreaded Elephant Fever.’ I said to Jim, ‘Then we do not know for certain that he died of Elephant Fever.’ Jim agreed that we did not know for certain.
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Christopher Nicholson
I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.In the middle of the 18th century, a ship docks at Bristol with an extraordinary cargo: two young elephants. Bought by a wealthy landowner, they are taken to his estate in the English countryside. A stable boy, Tom Page, is given the task of caring for them.The Elephant Keeper is Tom’s account of his life with the elephants. As the years pass, and as they journey across England, his relationship with the female elephant deepens in a startling manner. Along the way they meet incredulity, distrust and tragedy, and it is only their understanding of each other that keeps them together.Christopher Nicholson’s charming and captivating novel explores notions of sexuality and violence, freedom and captivity, and the nature of story-telling – but most of all it is the study of a profound and remarkable love between an elephant and a human being.
CHRISTOPHER NICHOLSON
THE
ELEPHANT
KEEPER
To my mother
Contents
Title Page (#u772586f3-7816-5f02-8129-6b47d6964a3a)Dedication (#uc6b658fb-589a-518c-b6af-750c62ff1896)Part One: Sussex, 1773 (#u1a8c005d-ca99-505a-a422-a83350a82b34)April 24TH (#ueac79f6e-ccb9-564f-be51-ea59d2156f48)The History Of The Elephant (#u8643cb5f-07dd-5f12-8c2a-3bda8dd0343b)Chapter I (#ufd81e039-2e17-5ae5-b972-d9054028ea16)Chapter II (#ua9e94394-e03b-53e0-9bec-5d1c7f3853c1)Chapter III (#ub6facd97-124d-5946-9391-a74030abb33b)Chapter IV (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter V (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter VI (#litres_trial_promo)Part Two: Sussex, 1773 (#litres_trial_promo)May 30TH (#litres_trial_promo)Part Three: London, 1793 (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Part Four (#litres_trial_promo)The Repository (#litres_trial_promo)About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PART ONE (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
Sussex, 1773 (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
APRIL 24TH. It was six days ago that Lord Bidborough, accompanied by another gentleman, came to the Elephant House and, after making the usual inquiries about my charge, who was, at that moment, quietly eating hay, asked whether it was true that, as he had heard, I was able to read. I replied that my parents had put in my way various books, which I had sat over, piecing together the letters until they began to make sense; whereupon his Lordship asked me which books, and I mentioned the Bible, ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, and ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. This last work, I said, had so fascinated and enthralled me that I had formed the ambition of taking ship and travelling to remote parts of the globe in search of wealth and adventure, an ambition from which my father had dissuaded me, pointing out the dangers that lay in such travel, and recommending me to content myself with my lot. Lord Bidborough listened carefully. ‘Your father would appear to have been wise,’ he said, smiling. ‘Many lives have been squandered in the pursuit of adventure. Your parents could read and write, too?’—‘They could read, my Lord, but scarcely write a word.’—‘But did you learn to write?’ I replied that I had been taught to write at the village school, and had mastered the art tolerably well, although I had not written for a long time.
At this the other gentleman, whose name was Dr. Goldsmith, said: ‘Lord Bidborough reliably informs me that you are able to speak Elephant.’ I explained, cautiously, that I could communicate with the Elephant by making certain signs and sounds, and that I could also interpret certain signs and sounds made by the Elephant; but none of this was any more than a man might do with his most favoured hounds. Just as a hound would obey if told to beg, or sit, or leave the room, so, in the same fashion I could command the Elephant to kneel down, to sit, to coil up her trunk and to perform other tasks. Dr. Goldsmith here gave a glance to Lord Bidborough, who said, ‘Tom, Dr. Goldsmith would be most interested to see a demonstration of this communication at work.’ I readily complied, leading the Elephant out of her stable into the yard, where I bid her shake hands with Dr. Goldsmith; that is, to shake his hand with her trunk, which she proceeded to do, to his astonishment. At a word she knelt, very slowly and carefully, as is the way with Elephants, whereupon I made a sign with my hands and she rolled gently on to her side.
Lord Bidborough asked, if this was indeed not a form of language. Dr. Goldsmith answered, that it was certainly remarkable: ‘But,’ he went on, ‘is not the Elephant known as the half-reasoning Animal?’ They discussed this for some minutes while the Elephant lay on the floor of the yard, her long-fringed eyes watching me for the signal to rise. From the slight twitches of her trunk I could tell that her patience was being tested, but she remained still and docile.
Presently the two gentlemen walked round her body and inspected her, poking her with their sticks and making further inquiries of her diet and her age. Dr. Goldsmith, who had pulled out a pocket-book and lead pencil, took notes on my answers. He was intrigued, as both ladies and gentlemen always are, with her trunk, which he called her probbossis. Having crouched to touch it, which he did with a certain caution, he asked me to explain its use and purpose. I replied that it had a double purpose: not only was it a breathing tube, like a human nose, in which respect it was highly sensitive, but also that it served as an arm and a hand, in which respect it was both prodigiously strong, capable of tearing branches off trees and hurling rocks, and highly dextrous, enabling the Elephant to untie knotted ropes or to pick up objects as small as a piece of straw, or a pin, at will. I asked Dr. Goldsmith to put his pencil on the floor; next, having drawn the Elephant to her feet, bid her pick it up and return it to him, which she did very courteously, and with a certain gleam of amusement in her eyes. Lord Bidborough gravely remarked that ‘the male of the human species also possesses an organ with a double purpose.’
In order to demonstrate the Elephant’s strength, I offered to command her to lift Dr. Goldsmith into the air, as she has often done in the past with his Lordship’s acquaintances. Though obviously tempted, Dr. Goldsmith was concerned as to the possible dangers, and asked whether I could assure him that he would be perfectly safe. Was it possible that the beast would hurl him to the ground, or tighten her probbossis like a snake so that he would be unable to breathe? I said that I had no qualms whatever on the matter, and that I would stake my life on his safety; however, if he preferred, I would demonstrate by ordering the Elephant to lift me in his stead. Dr. Goldsmith was on the point of accepting my offer, when Lord Bidborough, with an arch smile, asked him if he was afraid. He seemed somewhat stung by this sally.
‘Indeed, my Lord, I am not afraid in the least, but when it comes to my own life I generally exercise some prudence—however, in this instance, I am content to trust myself to your Lordship’s guidance. If I should be squeezed to death, my affairs are in order—I am ready to meet my Maker.’
So saying he took off his coat and stood arms extended, one arm holding his stick, the other his pencil and paper, while I gave the Elephant her instructions. Dr. Goldsmith is short in height, with a prominent forehead above a face which is deeply lined, and pitted from the Small Pox; and his expression, as the Elephant’s trunk extended itself, coiled round his waist, gripped, and drew him without apparent effort from the ground, was such that Lord Bidborough laughed heartily. ‘Are you much squeezed?’ he called. Dr. Goldsmith, some eight feet in the air, ignored his mirth, instead declaring in an affectedly calm voice that the prospect was d—ned excellent, and that he felt as comfortable as if he had been seated in a great chair; indeed, had he been equipped with a spy-glass or a book, he would have been perfectly content to stay in the coils of the Elephant all afternoon. However, when I asked him whether he would care to be set upon the Elephant’s back, or to be lowered to the ground, he replied that whenever it was convenient he would be most obliged if he could be replaced on terra-firma. The Elephant lowered him to the ground and released him from her grip. Dr. Goldsmith was a trifle flushed, but not excessively so, and as I returned to him his coat, he thanked me very much for an experience that he would never forget.
I rewarded the Elephant’s obedience with an apple that I kept in my pocket for such a purpose. Taking it eagerly with the end of her trunk, she swiftly placed it inside the cave of her mouth. Such a reward to an Elephant is as a sweet-meat is to a child.
It was then that Lord Bidborough asked me whether, if he were to supply me with pen, ink and paper, I would be willing to write a History of the Elephant. He said that no one had ever written such a History before, and that an account describing the animal’s characteristics, behaviour, habits and intelligence, by someone such as myself, who had intimate knowledge of the creature, would be of immense interest to many important people in London and elsewhere. Dr. Goldsmith agreed, assuring me that I would be doing a service to Mankind to write about such a noble beast. I was much surprized and for a moment, so daunted by the prospect, that I scarcely knew how to reply; at length I said that I feared that I would not have the skill.
‘Tom, have no fear,’ said Lord Bidborough. ‘It need only be a simple account of particulars. In practice, writing is no different from talking—is that not so, Dr. Goldsmith?’
‘Indeed, my Lord, writing is like talking; or, indeed, like riding a horse; once one is in the saddle, it is easy enough. A tap of the whip, and away you go. Of course, as there are good and bad riders, so there are good and bad writers, but everyone has the ability to write, provided he believes in his ability.’
Although I had some doubts on the matter, it was clear to me that, his Lordship being my master, I had no choice but to agree to the request, which I did without further demur. He thanked me, and said that he would ask Mr. Bridge to arrange for writing materials to be brought to the Elephant House. Later that day one of the pages duly arrived with three quills, twenty sheets of paper, and a horn of ink.
I can scarcely describe the despair that I went through on the succeeding evening. I soon found a title, The History of TheElephant. By Thomas Page, to which I added, Elephant Keeper toLord Bidborough, of Easton, Sussex; however, after this, I could not think how to proceed. Half-formed sentences drifted like down through my mind; when I reached out, they slid away. Why, I thought, do I have to write this history? Can anything written by a simple servant, the son of a groom, the keeper of an Elephant, be of interest to learned gentlemen in London? At one point, I remember, I had been gazing at the word Elephant for several minutes when the letters seemed to dissolve before my eyes, so that they became, not members of an alphabet, but lines and shapes without any meaning. Swimming in the candlelight, they seemed to make themselves into a single animal, a long, flattish beast with an E for a head and a t for a tail.
At length, remembering Lord Bidborough’s ‘a simple account of particulars’, I succeeded in writing a first sentence: The Elephant is, without Dispute, the largest Creature in theWorld: yet, before the ink had dried, I became filled with doubt. For (I thought), the Elephant is not the largest Creature in the world: there are creatures in the sea, whales and the Leviathan (which some people say is a kind of whale), which are far larger than Elephants. Thus I crossed out my first sentence, and instead wrote: The Elephant is, without Dispute, the largest Creaturein the entire terrestrial World, which, on further reflection, I changed to: There can be no Dispute that the Elephant is the largestand most stupendous Creature in the entire terrestrial World. Then I found myself wondering whether even this was true. Who knows what the world contains? Who knows what may be disputed? I saw the gentlemen in London, shaking their heads and murmuring in disagreement. Crossing out again, I wrote: Itis generally believed that the Elephant is the largest and moststupendous Creature in the entire terrestrial World. When at its fullGrowth, it measures as much as sixteen Feet high, or higher. Again, much doubt, but in desperation I plunged on: While Nature hasbeen generous to the Elephant in affording her such a great Size, itmay be said that She has been careless as to Form: for the Elephantis commonly considered a most ugly Animal. Here I checked, and re-wrote: is commonly considered a most unwieldy Animal. Itsmost extraordinary Feature is the long Prottuberance which extendsfrom its Nose, which is known as its Trunk. I now crossed out Trunk and wrote Probbossis, which I thought would please Dr. Goldsmith and all the other learned gentlemen, but the word looked so odd that I resolved to have nothing to do with it and returned to Trunk. But a further doubt had struck me, as to whether I had been entirely accurate: for, it may be argued, the Trunk of the Elephant does not extend from, but is, its nose. Is a trunk any more than a very long and remarkable snout? However, I continued: Its Ears are broad while its Skin is generallygrey. It is said to be the most sagacious of Creatures and isknown as the half-reasoning Animal. The Character of the Elephantis generally peaceful, yet they are renowned for their Bravery andCourage and will do battle with Lions and Tygers, if provoked.
The pain which it cost me to produce these feeble sentences was enormous, and later in the night, I woke, and lay in the darkness, thinking to myself, Lord Bidborough expects me to write this History, therefore I must write it, for Lord Bidborough is my master: yet I know nothing of Elephants in the wild, in the Indies and the Cape. There are many stories about Elephants, some of which I heard from Mr. Coad, but I do not know whether they are true. I do not know whether it is true that, as Elephants grow older, their skins harden until they cannot be pierced by a sword, or whether it is true that Elephants have their own kings, who are attended by troops of servant Elephants, or whether it is true that Elephants worship the moon. I do not even know for certain that Elephants fight with lions and tygers. How can I write outside my knowledge, except by a kind of guess-work, and what value is that? Besides (I went on, arguing with myself), whatever his Lordship says, writing is different to speaking; people do not write as they speak. In speech, they use ordinary, common words, the words which flow as easily out of their minds as water out of a spring, whereas, when they write, they employ a different vocabulary. In speech, a man sees an Elephant, but, once he has taken a pen into his hand, he observes it, or regards it. He does not meet an Elephant, but encounters it, and instead of trying to mount the same Elephant he attempts, or strives, or endeavours, to climb on its back. There is an entirely different language for writing, of which I am largely ignorant. I cannot write the History, I am incapable.
When I next met, that is, when I next encountered Lord Bidborough, I begged him to excuse me from the task. He read the page which I had written (to my shame, it was covered not only with crossings-out, but also with numerous runs and blotches).
‘Why, Tom,’ he said with a smile, ‘is she so very unwieldy? Is it that the Trunk is unwieldy, or the entire Creature?’
I stammered a reply: ‘My Lord, I do not think that she is unwieldy, however…I had originally written “ugly”. Would “ugly” be better?’
‘Ugly? Tom, the Elephant is surely what Nature intended her to be. To me, she is a remarkable Beauty.’
‘To me also, my Lord. But, if I write that she is beautiful…’ I stopped, confused.
Lord Bidborough looked at me in his kindly way. ‘Tom, forgive me—though I can see that you have laboured hard over this—it is not what I intended. I do not wish you to write a History of Elephants in general, but of this particular Elephant. I wish you to write a History of your Life together, in which you begin by relating how you first met the Elephant, and proceed from there. And if it is your opinion that she is beautiful, why, then, you should say so.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ I said.
Again I stopped, unable to express the full extent of my reservations, except in my burning face.
‘You know, Tom, so long as what you write is accurate and free from Invention—so long as it is faithful to the Truth—you cannot go far wrong,’ he told me.
‘Yes, my Lord.’
Having returned me the page, which I took very unwillingly, he went on: ‘By the by, Tom, though this is a small matter—with respect to style, there is no great need to employ capital letters quite so freely as you have done. In the past, I know, it was thought correct to lavish them on every possible occasion; but the fashion has changed, as fashions do.’
‘I will not use them at all, my Lord.’
‘No, no,’ said he, smiling, ‘you should use them for proper names, and at the beginning of sentences, and also, perhaps, if you wish to shew the importance of some thing or other—then they are valuable, and indeed necessary. For the rest, they may be left aside. But it is a small matter, scarcely worth mentioning.’
‘May I use a capital for the Elephant, my Lord?’
‘Why—if you wish. After all, she is the subject of the History, is she not, and therefore very important. However, perhaps I should not have mentioned it. The simple Truth should be your aim, Tom. Fix yourself on that, and you will have no great difficulty.’
‘Yes, my Lord.’
I find that I have therefore agreed again to try again, that is to strive, to attempt, to endeavour again (endeavour, I think, being the largest and most imposing word, I am resolved to stick with endeavour as much as possible), though my doubts remain: for I have no skill in the art of composition, and I fear that, even if I succeed in writing the History, it will be a dull affair, since I am no Gulliver and have no adventures to fill up the pages.
THE HISTORY OF THE ELEPHANT (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
CHAPTER I (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
I WAS born, the older of two children, in the village of Thornhill, Somersetshire, in the year of our Lord 1753. My father was head groom to Mr. John Harrington, a sugar merchant, who owned half a dozen ships trading out of the city of Bristol; these had brought him such wealth that he had acquired an estate, comprising some two thousand acres of farms and woodland. Mr. Harrington was very fond of riding over his land, and maintained a stable comprising some ten horses. From a very young age, it may be no more than two or three, I used to leave my mother’s side and accompany my father as he walked from the village to the stables. I loved the warmth of the stables and the sweet smells of straw and dung, and I loved the horses, with their soft noses and large ears and intelligent eyes. I thought of the horses as my friends, and gave them names. There was one mare, a roan with a white blaze on her head, whom I named Star-light; I used to kiss her muzzle and talk to her, telling her stories that I supposed might amuse her, and she would prick her ears and appear to listen. I loved her greatly and persuaded myself that she loved me in return—imagining, even, that I was not a human being but a horse. One summer’s evening, when I may have been six years of age, I fell asleep against her body in the straw, which caused a great alarm in my family, my mother and father passing a sleepless night in the belief that I had been stolen by gypsies, as happened occasionally in those days. When I was discovered, they did not know whether to be pleased or angry.
From this, you may draw the conclusion that I grew up a solitary boy, but I had the company of other children in Thornhill and Gillerton, and also of my younger brother, Jim, and we often played together round the stables. However, of the horses in Mr. Harrington’s stables, six were cart-horses, two hunters, and two hackneys, that is, road-horses, and while the carthorses were placid, heavy beasts, the hunters and hackneys had some thorough-bred in them and their tempers were far less certain. One of the hunters in particular, a big bay gelding, had a very nervous disposition, and one day he kicked out, and caught Jim a severe blow between the eyes. He was obliged to lie in darkness for more than a week, and, although he recovered, was left with the memory of the accident in the form of a scar on his forehead, and a plague of head-aches; which I think, more than anything else, gave him his timid, retiring character and fitted him for his later life as a gardener. He developed a great fear of horses, and for ever after avoided the stables.
My father, who saw my love of horses, made it his business to teach me as much as he could on that subject. He would tell me how, if a horse were short of breath, and his flanks shivering, he might be suffering from the Strangles; if he were dim of sight, and lay down shivering, it was a sign of the Staggers; if his breath stank, or foul matter issued from the nostrils, he might have an Ulcer, unless the matter were white, in which case it was the Glanders, or black, when it was the Mourning of the Chine, which is a kind of consumption. He taught me to watch for the colour of a horse’s urine, and the nature of his stool. Once, he led me up to a cart-horse which was suffering from worms. ‘Three different kinds of worms will attack a horse,’ he said, ‘the bot, the trunchion and the red maw worm. Lift her tail.’ I did so, and I must have been very young, for my eyes were level with her fundament. ‘Now put in thy hand.’ I was afraid that she would kick out, but my father told me that she would not kick. So I stood on tip-toe and slid in my hand. ‘Further. To the elbow. Further. Now, what dost feel? With thy fingers. Dost feel something wriggling?’ I said that I did, though I was not sure. ‘Pull him out.’ I did so, and found my wet fingers holding a little worm with a great head and small tail. ‘That is a bot,’ said my father. ‘He lives on the great gut and is easily pulled out. The trunchion and the maw worm live higher up. The trunchion is black and thick. The maw worm is long and thin and red.’
I remember being amazed by the vast store of my father’s knowledge, but he had learnt from his father, and in addition he owned a treasured copy of Gervase Markham’s ‘Maister-Peece’, which has been called the Farrier’s Bible. However, my father was his own man and did not agree with everything in Markham; for instance, in the matter of red worms, old Markham held that the first remedy was to bind human dung round the bit or snaffle, and, if that failed, thrust the guts of a hen down the horse's throat, whereas my father, on the contrary, believed a strong purge to be sufficient, though he purged only with great caution. Grooms in general think that a purge has worked only if it brings on a hurricane, but too strong a purge may kill a horse, especially if it is given to a horse which is weak or delicate, or which has an inflammation of the blood. However, there can be no doubt, that purges are very valuable in cleansing impurities. Every groom has his favourite ingredients for purges, and while Markham preferred Nitre, my father used coarse Aloes and Rhubarb, or Cassia, rolled into balls the size of a pullet’s egg, and given in spring and autumn.
I also learnt by watching my father at work, so that, by the age of eight or nine, I already knew the points of a good horse: that the mouth should be deep, the chest broad, the shoulders deep and the rump level with the withers, the tongue not too large, the neck not too long, the eye not too prottuberant. I knew how to bleed and purge, and how to cough a horse, that is, to try the soundness of his wind, by compressing the upper pipe of the wesand, or wind-pipe, between finger and thumb, and how to apply a glister, that is, luke-warm, and slowly. I knew how to tell a horse’s age from the condition of his gums, from the gloss on his coat, and from a particular mark which appears on his front teeth, from the fifth to the ninth year, when it disappears; but I also knew how to detect the practice of bishoping, whereby the teeth are filed clean to make the animal seem younger; indeed, I remember that my father once shewed me a crone of a horse which, to judge from its hollowed cheeks and fading coat, must have been fully twenty years old, yet its teeth had been filed and cut to make it appear ten years the younger. My father’s most important lesson, however, was one expressed not by his words, but in his acts: that horses are creatures with intelligence and emotions very like human beings, though to a lesser degree, and that when a horse is wayward, or rebellious, it is best to play the part not of a tyrant but of a lover, coaxing him gently into submission.
When I was twelve I became a groom in the stables at Harrington Hall, and as I took care of the horses—dressing, feeding, exercising, and performing a hundred other tasks for their benefit—I came to understand, or so I believe, something of their thoughts and feelings. Their disposition was greatly affected by the weather. On sunny days in spring and early summer, they would love to race round the fields and to roll on the ground, kicking their hooves in the air, but on sultry days when thunder was approaching they became nervous and irritable, especially if they were plagued by flies gathering round their eyes. I felt sorry for them, as I also felt sorry for them if they were ridden too hard, as often happened when they were taken hunting. In all my dealings with Mr. Harrington, I found him a very fair and generous employer, who never raised his voice in anger; yet, when he followed the hounds, he seemed to become a different man, and treated his mount with savagery. In a short morning’s hunt, the same big bay that had kicked my brother, a handsome, prancing creature, would be whipped and wrenched by Mr. Harrington into a condition of great distress, panting and foaming, blood round the mouth and eyes starting from the sockets. It often fell to me to soothe this poor animal. I would lead him into his stable, which I had already prepared with a litter of fresh straw, and there lift off the bridle, loosen his girth and throw a dry cloth over his loins; next, rub his face and throat and neck and give him a feed of hay. As he fed, I slowly washed his feet in soap and warm water, to the hocks, and last of all I took off the saddle, dried his back, and rubbed him down. All the while I would talk to him; for although my fellow grooms mocked me for this practice, horses like the sound of the human voice, and by degrees he would calm down, and recover his spirits.
Mr. Harrington had a young son, whose name was Joshua; he frequently came into the stables by himself, and I was set the task of keeping him safe. After his fourth birthday, when Mr. Harrington bought him a short, shag-haired pony, I also became his riding master, and every day in the stable-yard would drill him in the art of riding; thus, for instance, his breast should be thrown out, with the arms bent at the elbows and the elbows resting on the hips; there should be a small hollow in the reins, which should be held with a light hand, and with the thumbs resting flat upon each rein, while the waist should be pushed toward the pommel, so uniting him with the motions of the pony. He was an eager pupil, though sometimes too impatient for his own good, or that of the pony, and often I had to remind him that the way in which the best rider communicates his wishes to his mount is through the mouth—the hands moving the reins, the reins operating on the branches of the bit, the branches upon the mouth-piece. For the most part, however, Joshua and I got on very well, and we became good friends. The one and only difference between us came over the use of the whip—for Mr. Harrington had given him a whip, and he became angry when I forbad him to use it. ‘My father whips his horse!’ he objected, and was not pleased when I replied that no gentleman ever resorted to violence except when it was entirely necessary. On this subject I have been told that, in the Arab countries, which are known for their fine horses, the whip is scarcely ever used, and I wish that the same could be said here in England.
Mr. Harrington also owned a house in Bristol, and it was here that his family spent some months in the winter of 1765 to 1766. On account of my friendship with Joshua, I accompanied them, while my father stayed at Harrington Hall. I was greatly excited by the bustle and hubbub of Bristol, with its swarming streets, and soon began to entertain the notion that, instead of staying a humble groom, I might seek my fortune at sea. Mr. Harrington’s house was off College Green, and thence it was but a short walk up Brandon Hill, from which I could trace the passage of the ships as they moved down the river’s narrow channel and turned with spreading sails toward the open sea, like birds spreading their wings. Even nearer at hand was the quay itself, which I haunted and was haunted by, so that for hours at a stretch I would watch the ships as they swayed and jostled in the foul, filthy run of water, waiting their turn to unload their cargoes of sugar and rum, or tobacco and timber. The sailors were men with dark, weathered faces, and a swaggering gait which I envied and even tried to emulate; I would sidle into the taverns and eavesdrop on their conversations, and as I heard them talk about where they had been, and what they had seen, my imagination transported me into distant, exotick countries, and all kinds of improbable adventures.
Toward the end of that winter, I heard that a merchantman with an unusual cargo had landed at the quay after a long voyage to the East Indies. The rumour which ran like wild-fire through the city’s taverns was that a mermaid had been caught, and was being offered for sale to the highest bidder. Eager to see such a curious creature, which was said to be very beautiful, with a snow-white skin and a tail somewhat like that of a Porpoise, I mentioned it to Joshua, who promptly ran to tell his father; whereupon Mr. Harrington appeared to ask whether I was certain that it was a true mermaid. I gave the honest answer that I had been told that it was, but had not seen it with my own eyes. Mr. Harrington said that travellers generally returned with a cargo of tales which proved to be false; however, given the number of tales concerning mermaids, he did not entirely discount the possibility that such creatures existed, and he therefore desired me to go to the quay with Joshua, and to find out what I could as to the truth or otherwise of the story.
Fearing that we might be too late, we hurried over the wooden bridge to the quay, where a throng of people had gathered by the great crane at the lower end of Princes Street. The ship in question, by name the Dover, lay alongside, and as its cargo, which consisted, for the most part, of spices and other goods from the Indies, was being hoist ashore, I called to one of the sailors and asked him whether the mermaid had yet been brought to land. He replied with a grin that, if I would give him a shilling, he would conduct me and Joshua to her quarters, where we could watch her combing her black hair. I was about to hand over the shilling when another tar told me that there was no such creature on board; although he and his ship-mates had seen several mermaids during the voyage along the coasts of Madagascar and round the Cape of Good Hope, it had proved impossible to catch any, owing to the cannibals who had attempted to board the ship in their insatiable hunger for human flesh. However, he went on, there were several exotick and fierce animals on the ship, but for safety’s sake none of them could be landed until the tide was higher. I should here explain, for those who do not know Bristol well, the tide in the city runs at a great speed and has a very great fall, amounting to as much as twenty or thirty feet; so that, when the tide is quite out, the ships wallow on the mud with their keels exposed, and the tops of their masts barely reaching above the level of the quay. This would be a great disadvantage to those wishing to load and unload their cargoes, but for the cranes which are placed along the quay and which can raise most cargoes like a feather. The tide now falling to a low ebb, it was judged safer to wait until the succeeding morning to land the animals. I asked the sailor what kinds of animals he meant, and he mentioned a Leopard, a striped horse, two Elephants and a baboon with a white beard and blue testicles. ‘Blue?’ I queried. ‘Blue as up there,’ he assured me, pointing at a patch of sky; which piece of improbable intelligence, I immediately discounted as false.
I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.
Joshua and I waited for more than two hours, hoping to get a glimpse of the animals, but as dusk began to fall I judged it best that we return to Mr. Harrington’s house. I reported the sailor’s account to Mr. Harrington, who said that he would be interested to see the creatures. Mrs. Harrington, who was present, said to her husband, ‘John, we do not want to start a menagery.’ This was the first time that I ever heard of a menagery; it is a French word, which means, a collection of animals. Mr. Harrington replied: ‘I have no intention of doing so, I assure you.’
Early in the morning of the succeeding day, when we again went to the quay, Mr. Harrington accompanied us. With the tide now full, the deck of the Dover lay level with the quay; and we watched as, with many shouts, the great crane swung five sturdy crates on to the side of the quay. This took more than an hour, and, as the minutes passed, another crowd, almost as large as that of the day before, gathered to watch the spectacle unfold.
The Master of the Dover was one Captain Elias Hall, a stout, red-faced man who looked uneasy in a stiff suit. Taking a chisel, he prised two boards from the first crate, which had slipped its harness and landed heavily. It contained the striped horse, a creature known as a Zebra, and I saw at once that it had broken both its front legs and was very near death. Joshua was much distressed by its suffering, and the contents of the next crate to be opened were even more painful to behold, for the Leopard was long past all hope of recovery. This Leopard was evidently the prize trophy of the Captain, who had hoped, no doubt, to sell it for a large sum of money to some gentleman, and he did his best to rouse the poor animal by kicking its body and pulling its tail, to no avail, since it was utterly dead and had, indeed, begun to stink. The third crate, rather smaller, held a ginger-coloured baboon with a neat white beard and sky-blue testicles, just as the sailor had said; shivering as if it were cold, and holding its head in its hands, it crouched in a corner of the crate. Someone called for it to be brought forth, but someone else told us that it was excessively dangerous and would bite at will. Joshua now began to cry, saying that he wanted to go home; however, Mr. Harrington dissuaded him.
The next crate to be opened contained a large grey animal, lying on its side, deep in ordure, its hind legs in shackles. In my ignorance I had no notion even whether it might be of the land or sea, for in truth it did not resemble any creature that I had ever seen or imagined, except perhaps a whale. I heard the word ‘Elephant’, but scarcely registered its meaning in my astonishment. It had two huge ear flaps, four thick legs, and a single snake-like prottuberance dangling from the centre of its face. From a distance it seemed hairless, although on closer inspection I saw thick wiry hairs sprouting at intermittent intervals from the cracks and fissures in its skin, which was the colour of ash. Its eyes were closed. To me it looked nearly as dead as the Leopard, and Captain Hall evidently feared as much, because he ordered two of his sailors to throw sea-water over its body. At the shock of the water, the creature’s eyes remained closed, but it made a small stir with its head, whereupon a party of sailors dragged it out of the crate and, in spite of its great weight, endeavoured to set it on its feet. The Elephant promptly collapsed, being unable to stand, very nearly crushing one of the sailors beneath its weight. I was not surprized that it could not stand for, as I was presently informed, it had been confined in this tight space and virtual darkness for the entire length of the voyage, a matter of some ninety-one days, during the bulk of which it had been fed a meagre diet of biscuits and roots. It was easy to imagine the suffering that the creature must have endured, and the confusion in its mind; that it had survived the journey, was very near incredible.
When the final crate was opened we beheld another Elephant, in an even more desperate condition, a heap of grey skin.
Mr. Harrington and Captain Hall stepped aside and began to talk privately, while I learned more from the sailor. He told me that these two Elephants were mere children, barely half of the size that they might eventually achieve, something that I found privately incredible, but he assured me it was so; that another Elephant, a male, which had also been seized and brought on board ship, had been at least twice their bulk, and equipped with long tusks. When I asked where this prodigious creature now was the sailor told me that one night, at the height of a violent tempest, it had broken its shackles, burst out of its crate and rampaged the length and breadth of the ship, bellowing and trumpeting. There were fears that, with its size and weight, it might charge through the side of the ship, but to re-capture it in such a temper, even in calm weather, would have been a most hazardous operation; during a storm, it was not to be contemplated. However, the Elephant soon slipped and fell groaning on the deck, whereupon it was secured with nets and ropes and shackles. It never stirred again, and refusing all food and water was dead within three days. Captain Hall, who had been hoping to sell it for a large sum, had been sorry at its end, but the crew was generally relieved to be rid of a dangerous animal, and glad of the flesh provided by the carcass. I asked the sailor what Elephant tasted like, and he answered that it was very palatable, similar in flavour to beef, though far tougher in texture. What remained of the carcass was cast overboard, though not before the tusks and teeth were removed and stored in Captain Hall’s cabin.
Shewing my ignorance, I asked him what he meant by ‘tusks’, whereupon he spread his arms and described two great scimitars of white horn, jutting not from the temples, as one would suppose, but from the sockets in the roof of the Elephant’s mouth. The sailor said, it was a matter of regret that Nature had not supplied human beings with such weapons, which would have proved very useful. He also said that whoever bought these young Elephants would regret their purchase, for they would grow up full of rage and irritability, like the angry male.
Remembering Mr. Harrington’s words about travellers’ tales, I thought that this account of giant tusks might contain more invention than truth; however, both the tusks and teeth of the dead male were forthwith brought out of the ship. The teeth were well worn, testament to years of grinding, and reminded me of horses’ teeth, though they were much larger, the two largest being as large as house-bricks, while the tusks were smooth and curved and long, though not quite as long as the sailor had told me. One tusk was somewhat longer than the other, and though the tip of the longer tusk was pointed, that of the shorter of the tusks had been blunted. Also, when he had compared them to scimitars, I had supposed that they had sharp edges, which would slice off a man’s hand like the blade of a sword; whereas they were rounded. In colour, they were more cream than white.
Mr. Harrington now came to me. ‘Tom,’ said he, ‘is it your opinion that these miserable creatures are likely to live?’
I was a good deal flattered to be asked for my opinion, and also very uncertain how to reply. Both Elephants were breathing, but little more could be said in their favour; it seemed unlikely that either would survive for long. However, not wanting to answer entirely in the negative, I confidently suggested that they should be offered fresh water, and that if they drank it would be a sign that they might live. Pails of fresh water were promptly procured, and placed in front of the animals. Since their eyes were closed, they could scarcely be aware of what they were being offered; therefore, having received permission from Captain Hall, I cautiously crouched by the nearer of the Elephants, a female, and splashed a little water into her face. When she did not respond, I lifted her trunk, as I later learnt that it was called, and laid it across the back of my neck. This moment, when I touched an Elephant for the first time, when I felt the dry, wrinkled quality of its skin, when I felt the warmth of its skin, as warm as that of a human being, is one that I find hard to describe, but a great tenderness for the creature ran through me. By slowly straightening, I was able to lift the trunk and draw open the mouth of the Elephant, and into this dark cavern I poured a quantity of water. It vanished into the creature’s throat like a stream vanishing into a hole in the ground. I poured off the entire contents of the pail, and was reaching for another pail when the Elephant’s trunk seemed to slide off my neck, and to curl toward her mouth in search of further refreshment. At this sign of life I rejoiced greatly. After giving her the second pail, I turned my attention to the other Elephant, which I now saw to be a male, for two short tusks were poking from the skin above its mouth. I lifted its trunk, which was much heavier than that of the female, and laid it over my neck; but though I poured three full pails of water down its throat it failed to stir, and seemed past recovery. Mr. Harrington, who had watched all this, now turned to Captain Hall.
I had supposed that Mr. Harrington might purchase the tusks or some teeth; it never occurred to me that he would buy the Elephants. He was not, in general, the kind of man who acts out of a whim, or some passing caprice; his decisions were amply considered and based on Reason. In the end I believe that he bought the Elephants partly out of compassion, partly to please Joshua, on whom he doted, and partly as a shrewd piece of business, which might end in a handsome profit. He paid, as I understand, the sum of fifty guineas for the pair. Captain Hall, stuffing the coins inside his coat, did not look contented, but no other gentlemen having made an offer, he had little choice. If the Elephants had died, as seemed most likely, he would have received nothing for his pains.
Presently Mr. Harrington sent me for a cart and two horses, and I ran to College Green like the wind, dodging the sledges and drays and waggons. Martin Pound, another of Mr. Harrington’s grooms, had also come to Bristol. He was an old man, more than sixty years of age, and very slow, both in his actions and his wits; indeed I think perhaps he had always been slow, but age had slowed him even further. ‘Elephants?’—‘Yes.’—‘Two Elephants? Mr. Harrington has bought twoElephants?’—‘He has.’ The more I attempted to impress Martin with the need for haste, the slower he became. He sat on a wooden stool and shook his head in a doleful fashion, as if bemused at the extent of human folly. ‘Two Elephants? Why? Where will they live? Who is to look after them? What will they eat? How big are they?’ At length he rose stiffly to his feet and hobbled toward the cart-house, but it was a good hour before we had put the horses in the shafts and returned to the quay.
The male Elephant was still alive within its crate, but its breaths came very quick and uneven, and I was sure that it lay on the point of death. The crate was nailed up, and with great difficulty and much shouting was lifted aboard the cart and bumped up the hill to College Green. Once it had been set down in the stable-yard, the cart hurried back to the quay and fetched the female Elephant.
Each crate having been placed in a separate stable, Martin and I dismantled the boards, while Joshua and his father watched. At this moment Mrs. Harrington appeared. She was astonished at her husband’s purchase, as well she might be, given his previous assurances. ‘Is this wise?’ she cried. ‘Have you not considered that these animals may prove dangerous?’ Putting his arm to her waist, he replied that the Elephants were no danger at present—and indeed they were in no condition to harm a flea—and that they were not rapacious and cruel, like tygers or wolves. ‘On the contrary, from what I hear, they are intelligent beasts, with gentle natures, who become greatly valued and loyal servants. If so in the Indies, why not here in England? Besides, they will at all times be under the care of Tom and Martin. We need have nothing to fear.’
Once the two animals were settled on some straw, we cut the shackles with which they had been bound on the voyage. These shackles had chafed harshly and cut into the skin, and the wounds were discharging a foul fluid. We cleaned and dressed them as well as we could. Throughout this operation, the Elephants did not stir, and indeed for many hours they lay exhausted and asleep, while the sun came in the tops of the stable doors and shone on their wrinkled grey bodies. Sparrows chattered in the rafters, and every so often a bold sparrow might land on the ear of the stronger of the two Elephants, the female, and hop a little way over her head. The sun set, night fell; and when the succeeding day saw no change in their condition, I wondered whether they ought to be bled (and indeed my father, who was a strong advocate of bleeding, later chided me for failing to bleed them). In truth, I was not at all confident of finding a vein to open under their skins, and Martin was no help in the matter. He told me that, for his entire life, he had been a horse groom, not an Elephant groom, and that he knew nothing about Elephants, and had no desire to learn anything about Elephants, and intended to have as little as possible to do with Elephants. For all he cared, he said, I might take sole charge of the creatures. Though I too knew nothing about the care or behaviour of Elephants, I was strangely pleased by this arrangement.
As they lay like this, I had an excellent opportunity to begin my Elephant education by inspecting every inch of their bodies. Their skin was very dry, and in places looked like the bed of a dried pond, but it was softer than I had expected. Their huge ears were crinkled and stiff, and on each of their feet there sprouted a set of bony nails, the toes being concealed within the flesh. The fore-feet each had five nails, while the hind feet had four apiece, and the pads of the feet were covered in a hide so hard that it felt like horn. Their tails were thin straggling things, two feet long, and ending in tufts of hair, like the tails of oxen; which I thought unworthy of such great animals.
With some trepidation I peeled open their mouths. The tongues were fat and fleshy and there were four massive grinding teeth in each jaw, but no cutting teeth. The teeth of both the male and female were still strong and little worn, and from this, comparing them in my mind with the wear on the teeth of horses, I guessed that the Elephants were between eight and ten years old. Examining the trunks, I found that at the end of each was, not only a pair of nostrils, but also, above these nostrils, a kind of prottrusion or extension, like a finger, which is the means by which an Elephant is able to pick up tiny objects. I do not know the name for this finger, though I have often thought that it ought to have a name.
I was able to take the dimensions of both animals, which at this time were as follows:
FEMALE
From foot to foot, over the shoulder .............. 12 feet, 11 inches
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height ....... 7 feet, 3 inches
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail ............... 9 feet exactly
Trunk ..................................................................................... 5 feet 1 inch
Diameter of foot .......................................................................... 9 inches
MALE
From foot to foot, over the shoulder ................................ 14 feet, 11 inches
From the top of the shoulder, perpendicular height ............ 8 feet, 5 inches
From the top of the face to the insertion of the tail ....... 10 feet, 2 inches
Trunk ............................................................................... 5 feet, 10 inches
Diameter of foot .................................................................... 1 foot, 1 inch
From this it may be seen that with Elephants, as is generally the case in Nature, the female is in every particular smaller than the male.
As with the Elephant which had died at sea, the tusks of the male were different in length. From base to tip, the right tusk measured 13 inches, whereas his left tusk measured only 10 inches and was somewhat blunter. This discrepancy at first seemed odd, but I later found the explanation, which is that a particular tusk is always used for digging, much as human beings use a particular hand for writing, and that this tusk is therefore gradually worn away.
Although I was unable to weigh the Elephants, I believe that each weighed about the same as a large bull, or less, for they had been starved on the voyage and their skins hung slack on their bones. As they lay asleep, little Joshua frequently visited the stables—for, like me, I believe, he had fallen in love with the Elephants—and together we would watch as their bodies rose and fell with each breath. We would rest our hands on their warm skins, or press our ears against their sides and listen to the slow beating of their hearts. Once, I remember, he asked me if the Elephants would die, and I told him that I hoped not. ‘They must not die,’ he declared in a fierce voice, ‘I will not allow them to die;’ whereupon he knelt and began to pray for their recovery, and I knelt as well, and who can tell that our prayers did not succeed, for soon after this the stronger of the two Elephants, the female, took a long draught of water, after which she fell asleep again. The male remained on the border between Life and Death for much longer, and although he drank water on the third day it was not until more than a week had passed that he began to make a slow recovery.
After two or more weeks, both Elephants had struggled to their feet, and I was able to tempt their appetites with fresh hay and vegetables, which I bought in quantities from the Corn Market in Union Street. Once they had remembered how to eat, they ate in prodigious haste, cramming their mouths, I would say full, but an Elephant has a very capacious mouth. They liked fruits and vegetables of all kinds, including turnips, beans and potatoes, and had an excessive fondness for carrots. I remember the great excitement they both shewed when I first placed a heap of carrots in their feeding troughs. This relish of carrots being so marked, made me speculate that the Elephants must know what carrots were; in short, that the taste of the carrots must stimulate memories of their lives in the natural state. Whether this is so I cannot say for sure, I have asked several travellers who have seen troops of wild Elephants in the Cape and the Indies, but none has ever been able to recall whether there were carrots present.
Their consumption of water was vast, amounting to a dozen barrels a day, and I also gave them fresh milk, in order to help them recover their strengths. Here I should mention that, when Elephants drink, they do so by means of their trunks, which they use as straws, sucking up long draughts of liquid which they squirt into their mouths. I have heard it said that very young Elephants do not use their trunks, but bend down to drink directly with their mouths; whether this is true or not I do not know, but I never saw my two Elephants using their mouths to drink. However, they were clumsy, and it was not uncommon for them to knock over the pails with their feet, which when they understood an expression of surprize would cross their faces. Their pleasure in food and drink was evident, and once they had finished their meal they would demand further nourishment by waving their trunks and uttering little squeals.
One thing I quickly discovered was that their sense of smell was acute, far more acute than that of a horse; whether as sharp as that of a blood-hound I would not know, but if I entered the stables with a carrot or another tid-bit in one of my pockets, both Elephants would promptly scent it out, and the way in which their trunks greedily reached toward the pocket and, indeed, into the pocket, made me think that they could all but see with their trunks. This cannot be so, and yet in an Elephant the scent organ, which lies in the tip of the trunk, is so sensitive that it is akin to a third eye. Once, when the male was asleep, I made the experiment of concealing some carrots in a heap of hay, and upon awakening he instantly detected the carrots and tossed the hay aside to reach his favourite food.
I was exceedingly cautious of their strength and power, and took care not to be caught between their bodies, nor against the stable walls, when I might easily have been crushed. I kept them in view all the time; I did not once turn my back on them, or let them gain any advantage of me with their trunks, which would suddenly sway in my direction. They had suffered so much on the voyage that they might easily nurture a hatred of human beings, and I had no intention of letting them take their revenge upon me. If they felt hatred, however, they never shewed it in their eyes, which rather seemed to convey an utter weariness. The eyes of an Elephant are close-set and small, relative to the vast size of the skull, indeed they seem to be much smaller than the eyes of horses, which appear large and globular; but they are nonetheless highly expressive.
Mr. Harrington and little Joshua regularly came to see the Elephants, and Joshua always wanted to pet them, as he did the horses; but this I strongly counselled against. However, I would hold him up to the stable doors, and then he would offer each of the great animals a carrot, which they would twitch from his hands.
‘Do you think they will ever forget the experience of the voyage?’ Mr. Harrington asked me once.
I answered that both dogs and horses would remember illtreatment many years after it had happened. Mr. Harrington said he had heard from one of his acquaintances, a certain Mr. Coad, who had travelled widely in the Indies, that Elephants had infinitely superior memories to other animals, indeed, in that respect, were perhaps second only to Man, and that it was likely that some traces of their ordeal would never be lost. ‘Yet I believe,’ he continued, ‘that by treating them with kindness and respect, we may gradually cause these unhappy memories to dim in their minds.’
Mrs. Harrington also visited. She was very nervous of the Elephants, and even more so when she saw me lifting Joshua toward them in order to give them carrots. Her husband assured her that the boy was entirely safe, and Joshua said fiercely, ‘Tom will look after me!’, but she remained fearful. She asked how much larger the Elephants would grow, and Mr. Harrington said he believed that they might grow a good deal more; the male would grow larger than the female. She said, ‘No one else owns Elephants, why should we?’—‘If I had left them by the quay, they would have died.’—‘It might have been better if they had,’ she said. Mr. Harrington: ‘How so?’ Mrs. Harrington: ‘Because, as they increase in size, they will grow more dangerous.’ Mr. Harrington: ‘That they may grow larger does not mean they will be more dangerous. They are peaceful enough now, are they not?’—‘At the moment, they are.’ Mrs. Harrington looked very uncertain, however. Mr. Harrington smiled: ‘Would you prefer me to have bought you a little Negro boy, for a pet slave?’—‘Not at all,’ she replied, ‘you know that I abhor slavery, it is a barbaric custom.’—‘Yet it serves a need,’ he answered, ‘and indeed most slaves are grateful to their masters, for how otherwise would they be cloathed and fed? How would they live?’—‘That may or may not be, but I still do not understand what you purpose in keeping these creatures.’—‘I myself am not sure, but everything has a purpose. In time, they may breed.’—‘Why, I very much hope not,’ cried Mrs. Harrington, ‘if they are brother and sister, as you say!’—‘So the Master of the Dover told me, but who knows?’ replied Mr. Harrington. This was the first time that I had heard of the Elephants being brother and sister, or of the idea that they might breed.
The history of the Elephants before their capture is a blank, and for a long time I was not even sure whether they were from the Indies or from the Cape, though this particular doubt I later resolved when the same Mr. Coad, whom I mentioned earlier, came to see the two animals at Harrington Hall, and told me that they must come from the Indies: for in the Indies, the male grows tusks, while the female does not; however in the island of Ceylon none of the Elephants, either male or female, grows tusks, whereas in the Cape the male and the female both have tusks, though the females’ are no more than short things.
I used to puzzle as to how such large creatures as Elephants could be taken into captivity. Were they caught in nets? However it was done, it seemed to me, the matter must be extremely hazardous, for if the Elephant chose to resist capture, as it must, who could stand against it? I have since heard of the ways in which they are taken prisoner in the Indies.
The first is used to capture single male Elephants, which, said Mr. Coad, are known as tuskers. A tame female Elephant is sent into the jungle; when she finds a herd of wild Elephants, she makes advances to one of the tuskers, giving him caresses with her trunk until his desires are inflamed. As he responds to her advances, she artfully leads him away from his family into some quiet nook where, as he hopes, he will achieve a conquest, and with his mind thus engrossed two young natives creep up and slip a sort of rope round his hind legs. This they wind round some sturdy tree. The wily female now moves away from the tusker, who on discovering the restraints on his legs flies into a terrible frenzy, roaring and trumpeting shrilly, and attempting to recover his liberty. At length, after some hours, he seems to fall into a fit of despair, but the rage soon returns, and he roars again, and tries to rip up the ground with his tusks, and then again gives himself up to despair, and so on, for several days, until the cravings of hunger and thirst subdue his temper.
The second method is, I think, the one that must have been employed with the Elephants of which I now took charge. This method involves hundreds of natives, who form a wide circle round a grazing herd in the jungle. These natives are careful not to alarm the Elephants at first, but by lighting fires and brandishing torches, they gradually persuade the herd to move in a particular direction, that is, away from all the noise and clamour, and toward a specially prepared inclosure, known in the Hindoo tongue as a keddah. Sometimes it may take as long as a week before the herd reaches the keddah. This inclosure is formed of upright and transverse beams, which make a barricade, reinforced by a deep ditch, and is in truth a series of linked inclosures, the first being large, the second smaller, the third smaller still. The barricades are concealed by thorn and bamboo, but as the Elephants approach they often grow suspicious and attempt a retreat, whereupon they are met by banging gongs and shaking rattles. Once they enter the first inclosure, a gate is shut, and then they have no choice but to advance into the second inclosure, and again the gate is shut, and at last they arrive at the third. The Elephants by now being greatly alarmed, charge and rampage, but at every point they are repelled, and they gather in a sulky group, not knowing what to do, and here remain for a day, until a small door is opened, leading into a narrow passage. Food is thrown down, enticing one of the Elephants to enter, as he does so the door is shut. He tries to turn but there is not enough space, he tries to back out but the way is barred: he has no choice but to advance further and further, his mind whirling in terror and confusion, until he finds himself confined in a tight space. Here he is held by strong ropes, and here, while his rage subsides, that is, until it is subdued by hunger, he remains for a week or month, or longer, in the company of a man known as a mahoot, who will become his keeper for the rest of his life. This man never leaves the Elephant’s side, and takes care of his every need; so that the Elephant comes to depend upon him, understanding his commands and doing anything to please him. Indeed, the Elephant is the man’s slave, but there is this difference from many human slaves: that he serves willingly, lovingly, without questioning his position or feeling the least resentment: for, in the mind of the Elephant, his keeper, however poor or humble his station in human society, is a kind of God.
CHAPTER II (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
MY TWO Elephants (I had begun to think of them as mine, though they were the property of Mr. Harrington) were very pleased with each other’s company, and as a sign of their friendship they would entwine their trunks over the partition which divided their stables. Soon I began to feel more confident, and would let them use their trunks to explore what kind of creature I was, feeling round my neck, or my legs, or my head and face. It was a curious sensation to feel a waft of hot Elephant breath on my cheek or ear.
The stables in which the Elephants were housed faced east, and therefore received sunlight during the mornings only. One warm afternoon, I decided to let them into the yard. Being surrounded by brick walls, the yard was entirely secure, though as a precaution I tied ropes between each of their back and front legs. My heart beat as I bent under the trunks to tie the knots, but I made a shew of bravado; for them to have detected my apprehension would have been a great error. In the yard they passed a very pleasant two hours, after which I led them back to their stables. Martin and I then took a horse and cart over the bridge to the Corn Market in order to buy fresh provisions for our charges, but we had scarcely reached the Market when one of the maids came panting toward us, crying out that the Elephants had escaped and were running through the streets. Much alarmed, I hastened back to the house, where to my great relief I found both Elephants peacefully browsing on the small weeds which grew out of the cracks between the bricks. With the lure of a few sweet carrots, I was easily able to return them to the safety of their stables.
Since I had bolted both stable doors, it was a great puzzle as to how the Elephants had broken loose. I strongly suspected that Joshua must have set them free, but when I next saw the boy, he hotly protested his innocence. I confess that I was not entirely sure whether to believe him, which made him very cross; he stamped his foot and began to shout so loudly that Mrs. Harrington appeared and asked me what the matter was. When she heard that the Elephants had escaped, she tightened her lips and said that she had known it would happen. I promised her that they would never escape again; yet they succeeded in doing so on the very next day. I therefore set a trap, pretending to leave with the cart, but concealing myself in one of the horses’ stables, with a good view of those occupied by the Elephants. Nothing happened for several minutes; then the female, who had been watching to see whether she was observed, curled up her trunk, grasped the bolt that secured the door to her stable, and slid it back in one deft motion. The male did likewise, and both animals ambled out, very pleased with themselves; at which point, I sprang from my hiding place, and drove them back to their quarters. I secured each of the stable doors with a lock, which could only be opened with a key. Both Elephants made repeated efforts to pick their locks over the coming hours; when they failed, I felt triumphant. I have defeated you, I thought to myself. Yet, soon enough, I came back from the Corn Market to find them once again in the yard, and the stable doors lying flat on the ground, torn off their hinges. The Elephants, having given up the locks, had lit upon the simple expedient of backing themselves out of their stables. They eyed me with a kind of glee, which was not at all as innocent as it pretended to be, and I gave them a severe reprimand, telling them how strongly I disapproved of their actions. They would not meet my eyes and looked uneasily away.
After this incident, I had stronger doors made, with iron bars, but it was plain that the Elephants needed proper training. However, before I had got very far with this, there was another matter to consider. Mr. Harrington and his family were returning to Thornhill for the summer months, and the Elephants had to shift also. How to move them safely over thirty miles of country was an aukward question. Martin was in favour of putting them in the same stout wooden crates which had been used to move them from the quay, and transporting them by waggon; while I argued that they should travel on foot, with their legs chained. I doubted that we would be able to persuade them into the crates, which would surely remind them of the torments that they had endured on the voyage from the Indies; and I also doubted that, if they attempted to regain their freedom, the crates would hold. Mr. Harrington, however, agreed with Martin, pointing out that, since College Green lay on the west side of Bristol, and to the north of the river, our route would necessarily take us through the centre of the city, where the streets are very narrow, and that the Elephants would be certain to attract crowds of people, causing untold havock; moreover, even when we were outside the city and in the countryside, we could not be sure that they would not take fright and bolt across the open fields. The only safe course, therefore, was to transport them in the crates.
Several days before the journey was to take place, I placed the crates in the stable-yard, lining them with hay and hiding their appearance with rags and ivy. In spite of this disguise, the Elephants were not deceived; they were very wary of the open crates, and would not go near them. However, I gave them very little food, and by the third day, which was the day before we hoped to leave, the suspicions of the male had been overtaken by hunger, and he went into one of the crates and ate some hay. The female remained highly suspicious. Our difficulty was all the greater, in that the animals had to enter their crates at the same time; for, if the male saw the female being imprisoned, he would certainly take fright, and the same for the female.
Early on the morning of the journey, Martin and I had assembled a troop of helpers—some twenty strong men, from other houses on the Green—and while they stood by I laid a trail of carrots from the stables into the crates, which were piled with carrots. To my astonishment, this ruse worked as soon as I opened the stable doors; indeed it worked so quickly, both Elephants hurrying into their crates, that all of us were taken by surprize. The men rushed forward, ten to each Elephant, and held them there while iron bars were laid in place. When the Elephants understood that they had been tricked into captivity, they trumpeted in rage and distress, and I have no doubt that they would have broken out, but that the crates had been strengthened with bars, and that they were tightly confined, unable to turn or to swing their trunks. I should say here that people often believe that an Elephant’s tusks are its main weapon; whereas, in truth, the trunk is far more dangerous.
Without further ado, each of the crates was loaded on to a waggon, and tightly secured with ropes; then a team of four horses was put in the shafts.
Fortune favoured us thus far, but no further: for we had scarcely left the city of Bristol behind us when the clouds opened. The rain began to pour, and the roads were soon sticky with mud, and the Elephants made a heavy load. Moreover, the horses, though strong, were frightened by the presence of the Elephants, who kept up an intermittent bellowing and trumpeting. Their cries made me desperate to cover the thirty miles as quickly as possible, in order to release them from their confinement; but we made poor progress, and as we were struggling up a steep down near Cheddar, I wondered whether we would ever reach the top. The rain pelted, and the road, which was deeply rutted, ran in chalky torrents, and the horses strained and stumbled; we dismounted, but one horse puffed and blowed so badly I thought that she would drop. As we neared the top, we met a large herd of sheep being driven to market, and their baas and bleats persuaded the Elephants to trumpet even more loudly. In the midst of this cacophony, the shepherd shouted to ask what animals we had on our waggons; on hearing that they were Elephants, he seemed as amazed as if he had been told that they were dragons. The Elephants quietened after that; and when we reached an inn at Wells, where we gave our tired horses a bait, I peered into the crate containing the tusker. In the lines of light shining faintly through the cracks between the boards, he stood motionless, but I caught the gleam of an eye, and I had the impression that he was looking at me. The end of his trunk slid, and blew against the crack. Within her crate, the female was equally still. I imagined the distress in their minds, and their fear that they were about to be put on another ship.
Night had already fallen with the rain still heavy when we crawled into Thornhill, passing the cottage where my family lived. We turned into Mr. Harrington’s estate and drove to the stables behind the Hall. My father, whom I had not seen for over three months, was waiting with my fellow grooms, Bob Brown and Dick Shadwick. While they attended to the horses I prised open the crates, first that of the female, then that of the male. Both Elephants were dazed, and unsteady on their feet; they staggered toward each other through the puddles and bumped bodies; but I was relieved that they were alive. After I had given them a long draught of water, I led them into the cart-house, which it had been decided would be their new home. I would not allow any of the grooms, not even my father, to help, which caused some ill-feeling, but my main concern was with the comfort of the two Elephants.
Presently Mr. Harrington appeared, and with him was Joshua, carrying a lanthorn. The Elephants were standing side by side, and I remember how for one moment in the light held up by the little boy they seemed to shrink back, their trunks drooping from their faces, while their shadows flung against the rough whitewashed wall at the back of the cart-house merged to form a single dark shadow creature with a double trunk, which swayed and stretched to the slightest movement of the lanthorn. Mr. Harrington asked me how the Elephants did and I told him that they did very well, though they were greatly unsettled by the journey.
That night I slept with them at the cart-house. In the morning, I left them in the care of my father, and went to see my mother, whom I was glad to find in good health. She told me that my brother, despite his head-aches, had been given work in the gardens at Harrington Hall, and when I learnt this I felt very grateful to Mr. Harrington. However, she was frightened that I was in charge of two Elephants, and kept telling me to take care of myself, for, she cried out, wringing her hands, that she could not bear it if I were torn to pieces and eaten alive. From this remark I discovered that she believed Elephants to be animals of great ferocity, who used their vast tusks like swords to slaughter their prey, having been told as much by Mrs. Perry, a withered old woman who was one of our close neighbours in Thornhill. Since my mother held Mrs. Perry to be an infallible authority on all matters political, historical, geographical, moral and scientific, although in her entire life she had probably never ventured more than a dozen miles from Thornhill, I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her (my mother, that is) that, on the contrary, Elephants were gentle as cows, though ten times as intelligent, and ate only vegetable matter. When I invited her to see for herself, she said that she did not dare, it was more than her life was worth; she was sure that she would be eaten. With my father’s help, however, I prevailed on her to come. She gazed at the female, and then at the male, before saying, ‘Tom, if it is so gentle, why does it have tusks?’ This question has often puzzled me, and I confess that I do not know the answer. Although it may be that, in the wild, the tusks are sometimes used as weapons, I am sure that they are chiefly employed for peaceful purposes, digging for roots and unearthing shrubs and trees, in which service they are very valuable.
It was about this time that I gave names to the Elephants, just as I used to name certain horses when I was a boy. The male I named Timothy, after my own father, while the female I called Jenny, a name that I had always happened to like. However I did not tell anyone these names but kept them private, in case they exposed me to ridicule.
The rain having passed on, I allowed the Elephants out of the cart-house. At Harrington Hall, unlike in Bristol, the yard received sun for much of the day, and they enjoyed its heat, moving so that its rays angled on to the broad expanse of their grey backs. As they stood like this, with their back legs roped together, I took the opportunity to wash and scrub them, using a stiff brush, and this Jenny suffered me to do with great patience; however, when I came to Timothy, his trunk knocked the brush from my hands and tossed it toward his sister, and when I went to retrieve it, she flicked it away. This mischief shewed how far they had recovered their spirits after the journey from Bristol, and during the succeeding days they began to play any number of tricks. One of my daily tasks was to dig out the dung that had accumulated in the cart-house, taking it in a barrow to a large pit by the kitchen garden, while my father watched the Elephants to see that they behaved. (I may mention here that Elephant dung, being somewhat lighter and dryer than horse dung, is of great value in the garden.) When, after one of these trips, I returned to the yard, I heard my father shouting, and found that Timothy had seized the spade with his trunk, and was swinging it to and fro with such force that, had it connected with my father’s head, it might well have knocked out his brains. I reprimanded him in as severe a voice as I could muster, but he was annoyed, and sent the spade flying through the air. I pretended to be very angry, and slapped his flank with the palm of my hand, an action which hurt me a great deal more than it can have hurt him.
It was clear that I needed to press on with their training, and I began to teach them certain signs and sounds. They regarded me attentively, for when they did well I praised them loudly and rewarded them with carrots or fruit. When they did badly, I shook my head and reproved them by wagging a finger, but this was seldom necessary. They learnt quickly, much more quickly than horses; indeed, it was remarkable how fast we went, so much so that I often wondered whether they had not already received some training in the Indies. One reason for their speed was that they imitated each other. While they watched me, awaiting the next order, and often anticipating it before it was given, they also watched each other.
Within a matter of days they were willing to walk forward, to stop, to turn to the left and right, and to walk backward. I then taught them to kneel. Among the differences between horses and Elephants is that, while a horse has three bones in its leg, an Elephant has only two; thus the horse, when kneeling, brings his hind legs under his body, while the Elephant lets his go before him, like a human being.
All this training I did either in the cart-house or in the yard, and all the time I kept their front and back legs roped. In addition, I made a kind of harness, which I attached to their upper bodies, tying it under their bellies and drawing it between their front legs.
My next step was to teach them to lie down. This proved more difficult, for although Elephants will lie down to sleep at night, for an hour or two, this runs counter to their natural inclinations, which are to stay on their feet; for when on the ground they cannot rise quickly to their feet and are all but defenceless, unable to use their tusks or trunks to defend themselves against any enemies. For this reason it took many hours of teaching before I could persuade them to do my bidding. I took care never to shew my emotions but to remain entirely patient, in the certainty that my will would in the end prove the greater, as eventually proved the case. It was Jenny who first yielded, dropping to her knees and tilting her body to one side so that she fell, crumpling, to the ground; whereupon I praised her loudly and rewarded her with food, and the sight of this convinced Timothy to do likewise. As they lay in the dusty yard, breathing slowly, with the spring sun on their bodies, I felt a great sense of satisfaction that two such creatures, the most powerful beasts in the animal kingdom, should have bowed to my will; and also some regret that neither my father nor my fellow grooms, who were busy exercising the horses, had witnessed this singular event. The succeeding day I took care to repeat the feat when Bob and Dick were watching, hoping to impress them mightily, but to my disappointment they said nothing and feigned complete indifference.
However, when I gave a demonstration of the Elephants’ progress to Mr. Harrington, he expressed his astonishment and pleasure. ‘But, Tom,’ he went on, ‘you should not be doing this alone. Each Elephant should surely have his own groom. Why is Martin not helping? Or Dick?’—‘Sir,’ I said, feeling somewhat uneasy, ‘it is easier by myself. The Elephants prefer a single keeper.’—‘They do, do they? Both of them? They have clearly expressed their preference for a single keeper?’—‘Yes, Sir. And my father helps me.’—‘If you say so,’ said Mr. Harrington, who was perhaps a little surprized, ‘but pray, Tom, how have they expressed this preference?’—‘Sir,’ I said, ‘they refuse to obey the other grooms. They will not obey them.’—‘They will not obey them?’—‘No, Sir. They refuse. They pretend to be deaf. They will only obey me.’
While this was true enough, it was also true that none of my fellow grooms ever attempted to make friends with the Elephants, or ever offered them any tokens of affection. At the time, I could not easily understand this, but now I think that it derived partly from fear, and partly from resentment at the extent to which the Elephants drew attention away from the horses. Mr. Harrington made no secret of the fact that he was more interested in the Elephants than the horses. My father, moreover, being head groom, felt that the Elephants disrupted the smooth running of the stable-yard. Here I should also mention the curious antipathy which exists between horses and Elephants. Even before the horses in Mr. Harrington’s stables had seen the two Elephants, they smelt them; and, not liking what they smelt, became agitated. They were more difficult to handle; they stamped, and neighed, and these symptoms became all the more pronounced when the Elephants began to squeal and trumpet. Soon enough, the horses set eyes on the Elephants, and this frightened them so much that several sweated and shivered uncontrollably, and refused to eat. It seems that all horses are frightened of Elephants. Quite why there is such antipathy is not for me to say, but there is a fixity, an intensity, in an Elephant’s beady stare which strikes terror into the heart of the bravest horse.
After this conversation, Mr. Harrington seemed to accept that I should be sole keeper of the Elephants; at least, he never mentioned the matter again. For this, I believe, I have to thank Mr. Coad, who visited the Elephants, and who told Mr. Harrington of the personal attachments which, in the Indies, form between Elephants and their mahoots. Indeed Mr. Coad, when talking to Mr. Harrington, always referred to me by this curious word, mahoot.
Mr. Coad was a gentleman of middle age, originally from Lancashire, and his character was plainly expressed by the rugged, wrinkled appearance of his face, somewhat like that of an ancient bulldog. When he delivered his opinion on any matter concerning the Elephants—which he generally did with his legs astride, and hands on his hips—he did so in a tone which seemed to say that anyone foolish enough to challenge him should expect a sharp bite. Nonetheless, much of what he had to say I found very interesting indeed.
In the Indies, he said, the Elephants were employed by the princely rulers to execute criminals, which they accomplished by trampling their bodies, or breaking their limbs, or impaling them on their tusks, according to the direction of their mahoots. At the invitation of the Prince of Udaipur, Mr. Coad had witnessed the execution of a man who had been found guilty of ravishing a young girl. Hands tied behind his back, eyes blind-folded, he knelt on the dusty ground and awaited his fate, while the Elephant, a tusker, slowly advanced with its mahoot on its neck. It halted before the kneeling man and, at a word of command, lashed out with its trunk. The guilty man fell, uttering a single cry, which was promptly silenced as the Elephant stood on him with one of its fore-feet and crushed his chest. As an act of completion, the Elephant swept the body into the air, raising it to a height of six or seven feet, before dashing it to the ground and driving a tusk through the neck. At this point the execution was over; the tusker backed away, and the relations of the dead man were allowed to claim the body. What was impressive, said Mr. Coad, was the solemn manner in which this execution was carried out, the Elephant obeying his mahoot’s instructions to the letter, and acting, so far as he could judge, as the perfect agent of human justice. ‘It is infinitely preferable to the sordid hangings that we have in England,’ he told Mr. Harrington. This account of the execution haunted me for many nights, and sometimes haunts me even now: I picture the kneeling man, I enter his mind and hear the slow tread of the approaching Elephant, like the approach of Death itself, and I listen with terror for the faint swish of the trunk, the last sound that I shall ever hear.
In the Indies, said Mr. Coad, it is considered a great honour for an Elephant to be appointed an executioner. Other Elephants work in such tasks as plowing, pulling carriages and hauling heavy loads of wood and rock, much like draught horses and oxen in England, though the loads they draw are far heavier. A token of their great strength is that they sometimes also help with the launching of ships.
Other pieces of intelligence, which may be of interest to the reader, are as follows:
That, when wild, Elephants feed chiefly on grass, leaves, bark and fruit; among their favourite foods being a crescent-shaped fruit with a tough green skin, known as a banana;
That wild Elephants sometimes break into the corn fields, committing terrible ravages, and have to be driven out by the natives;
That Elephants have long memories, and if subject to injury or insult will look to revenge themselves, even for years afterward;
That, when Elephants come to mate, they do so with the utmost secrecy, retiring to a dense thicket; which is a sign of their great modesty; and that after mating, both animals retire to the nearest body of water, to wash themselves;
That the period of time necessary for a mahoot to train an Elephant is generally reckoned to be between six months and one year;
That the females are more tractable than the males; however, both sexes are subject to abrupt fluctuations in mood, in which Elephants who have always displayed gentleness will, without warning, turn angry and stubborn;
That, in the Indies, unlike in the Cape, the Elephants are never shot for their ivory, however, when a male proves unruly or wayward, his tusks may be sawn off;
That this operation, which would seem impossible, is accomplished after letting the Elephant drink quantities of the local liquor, which quickly reduce him to a state of utter insensibility.
Mr. Coad went on to tell Mr. Harrington that, in the Indies, the mahoots were able to enforce their rule over their charges by employing an iron spike, known as an ankus, and he strongly advised me to get myself such a spike. He said that at the root of all obedience was fear; this principle was universal, and had equal application to the government of human society, for if people did not fear their rulers, it was in their natures to rebel. Mr. Harrington said that this was undoubtedly true: ‘Tom, you must have one of these spikes.’ I asked Mr. Coad how the spike was used, and he said the mahoot would either press the point into the skin on the back of the Elephant’s ear, or bring it down more or less hard on the skull. A blow which would split open a man’s head, said Mr. Coad, was, to an Elephant, which has a skull like a rock, no more than a light tap of remonstrance.
At his and Mr. Harrington’s urging, I did get myself such a spike, which I used a few times, though I felt a reluctance to use it over-much, believing that it were generally better to work by consent than fear, and so to expel the elements of ferocity in their natures. This is true of all animals, that they may easily be ruined by harsh treatment at a young age. A dog savagely beaten as a puppy lives the rest of its life in a kind of cringing terror. A fine, mettlesome young horse, whipped and lashed into subjection, loses its spirit and becomes a worthless jade. I found that merely by wearing the ankus on a string round my neck, so that the Elephants could see it, was generally enough to persuade them into obedience.
Early one day in May, I was sufficiently confident to lead the Elephants out of the yard and into the grounds. It was a fine sunny day, and, although I kept their legs roped, they frisked and rolled on their backs, very like horses or cattle which have been confined all winter. My pleasure in watching them was tinged with apprehension that, when I ordered them back to the stables, they would ignore me; however, at a single clap of my hands, they turned attentively, and, at another clap, they rambled toward me.
Encouraged by their obedience, I made the experiment of taking the Elephants to an old copse which lay on the side of a hill, about a mile from the Hall. I led them on ropes attached to their harnesses. At the start, we walked along the track in a leisurely fashion, the Elephants feeding on the vegetation on either side, but as we drew near the copse they scented what lay ahead and quickened their pace, so that I found myself forced into a run. The hazels in the copse were in new leaf, while the ground was thick with blue-bells, and the air full of perfume. Greatly excited, and making little squeals and rumbles of pleasure, the Elephants grazed through the blue-bells, their trunks flying out to latch on to hazel branches, which they dragged and tore down and stuffed into their mouths. Throstles and other birds sang loudly, and the sun shone in lances through the leaves. It was now that I first saw Timothy use his tusk in the way that I have already described, driving it deep into the soil to lever up a young oak.
Among the blue-bells were many thin paths, made by badgers, and presently the Elephants found their sets, which had lately been dug out, with fresh mounds of earth heaped outside the entrances, and scattered blue-bells (which badgers use to line their homes). Timothy and Jenny sniffed loudly at the entrances to the holes, no doubt scenting the badgers, and making strong noises of disgust—indeed, they inserted their trunks a small distance down the holes—I, meanwhile, felt a fresh anxiety, lest the ground, having been mined, might collapse under the weight of the Elephants. I called them to me, and we moved down a slope where the blue-bells gave way to a snowy spread of ramsons. The Elephants’ feet squeaked on the leaves, crushing them and making them smell strongly. However, instead of feeding on the ramsons, the Elephants hurried through them, making for a pond surrounded by willow and rush, and well known to me as a particular haunt of toads. As a boy, in late winter, I often used to visit it to collect the neck-laces of their spawn, or to watch the chaotic frenzy of their mating, when twenty or more glistening males would struggle to clamber on one unfortunate female. Now, in early summer, the pond was full of young toads, and as the Elephants waded in they swam frantically out of the way, while moor-hen scuttled for the cover of the rushes, and a pair of duck took flight. Having scooped up quantities of foul-smelling mud, which they splattered on their backs and flanks, the Elephants began to squirt water at each other in great jets, using their trunks like cannons. The sun made rainbows through the spray, and the mud dribbled down their flanks. They were like unruly children, and indeed as they wrestled with their trunks, or pushed, heads locked together, each heaving to dislodge the other and grunting with the strain, I thought that they were like human children in Elephant form.
When, at length, I clapped my hands and summoned them out of the pond, they declined to hear, and continued with their sport. I shouted threats, and even brandished the ankus. They pretended not to notice, and this angered me, for I could think of no easy way to force them out of the water unless I myself waded in, which with the mud smelling so foul I was loath to do. I was obliged to wait for upwards of an hour while they wallowed and splashed away. In the end I resorted to cunning, concealing myself behind a tree, and in their curiosity to discover my whereabouts they splashed out of the water. Having caught their ropes, I gave the Elephants a severe reprimand, and though either could have knocked me down with the twitch of a trunk they heard me out and seemed to shrink back and repent. As we left the copse, we met a party of wood-men, whose alarm at the sight of two dripping, mud-soaked Elephants, draped in green weed, was so great that they flung down their tools and took to their heels.
We made many subsequent visits to this spot and I never again had any difficulty in making the Elephants leave the water; in part, I think, because I used to reward them with sugar or a carrot, but also because they were anxious not to incur my displeasure. The wood-men grew to understand the innocent and peaceable character of the Elephants, and as word of our trips spread through the neighbourhood we often had company in the shape of boys and girls, who would run ahead or follow us, flitting through the trees, or peeping from a tree trunk, caught between apprehension and curiosity. A few children were bold enough to come closer; among these was a little maid no more than five years old, who approached very timidly one day. At her approach, Jenny and Timothy raised their heads, staring, so I signalled to them to stand still and walked over to the maid, who was holding some dry sticks of wood. Her name was Margaret Porter; she was the daughter of Robert Porter, a wheelwright. When I asked her if she knew what these great creatures were called, she shook her head. I said, ‘They are called Elephants and they are very noble and wise creatures, who come from far away across the sea.’ She put down her sticks and bravely took my hand and we walked toward the two Elephants, who were side by side. ‘Are you not at all afraid?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied, though she held my hand very tightly. To her they must have seemed as lofty as the giants which Gulliver meets in the land of Brobdingnag. I said to the Elephants, ‘May I present you my very good friend, Margaret?’ and two trunks slid through the air and began to explore her head and arms with the utmost politeness. She hardly knew, I think, whether to laugh or cry; at first she giggled, and then, forgetting her sticks, ran off as fast as her legs could take her. But she came back on other days, and soon became a favourite with the Elephants.
Another of their favourites was Lizzy Tindall, a girl of my own age who lived in Thornhill. She was the daughter of the tanner, George Tindall. As children, we had sometimes walked together to the school-house in Gillerton, where she had a great reputation for mischief-making; this grew from the occasion when, having cut off her hair and rubbed mud into her face, she deceived the school-master, old Mr. Gibbons, into thinking that she was a gipsy boy. Here she was successful, but on another occasion, when she claimed to have seen an angel standing in the churchyard, she was soundly whipped for lying. Now she was employed in the Hall as a maid, or spider-brusher, as she called herself, which she found much less entertaining, and when she had time she would steal away, to chat with the grooms or stroke the horses, or to feed sugar to the Elephants. There was always a good supply of sugar in the kitchens, and since they loved it even more than carrots they became very affectionate toward her; indeed on one occasion Timothy became too forward, his trunk slipping from Lizzy’s neck into her bosom. She drew my attention to what he was doing, whereupon I told her to push the trunk out of the way, which she did, pat pat, but soon enough, back came the trunk. ‘Tom!’ she cried, ‘is this not deliberate! What a saucy Elephant!’ Indeed he was perfectly innocent and had no idea of the liberty which he was taking, and I said so; whereupon she tossed her hair (which, when she took off her cap, now hung half way down her back), and laughed, ‘I am not so sure, look at him! Look, Tom!’ and it was true that the Elephant continued to rout round. But there was a reason for this, as I soon discovered, which was that she had hidden a piece of sugar in her bosom, to test him out.
While the Elephants held Lizzy and Margaret as particular friends, there were other people whom they regarded less favourably. Among these were my fellow grooms, Bob Brown and Dick Shadwick. I had once been on good terms with Dick, who was my elder by no more than three years, but since the arrival of the Elephants he seemed to have turned against me. At the time my voice had not yet broken and was still piping and shrill, and whenever he met me he would squeak like a mouse. This feeble joke afforded him vast quantities of amusement. I ignored him, but I could not stand idly by when he and Bob persecuted the Elephants. Bob used to divert himself by tossing the Elephants stones or pebbles, and sometimes they were deceived enough to take these offerings into their mouths, though they would generally spit them out soon enough. When I asked him to stop, he laughed. ‘If they are foolish enough to eat stones, let them do so,’ he said, and this filled me with indignation, for my father had often told me of a race-horse which had choaked after it was purged with too large a ball. The ball had lodged deep in the horse’s gullet, and all efforts to retrieve it with an iron instrument having failed, the animal suffered a miserable death.
I found that my father did not greatly want to hear about Bob’s behaviour, and indeed he attempted to dismiss it as a mere prank, whereupon I interrupted, ‘Father, a prank that could end with the death of the Elephants.’—‘Well,’ said he, with great reluctance, for he hated arguments, ‘I will talk with him.’ My father went and talked to Bob. A short time later, Bob came up to me: ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘forgive me—I am sorry for the stones—and to shew this I should like to give the Elephants an apple each.’ There was a mocking smile on his face, and before I could prevent him he had held out two small green apples. Both Elephants took their apples and put them in their mouths; but while Timothy ground his to pulp, Jenny spat hers out and with it a nail. I was very angry and told Bob what a fool he was. ‘A fool?’ says he, sneering, ‘who are you to call me a fool? A stable-boy!’ I said that, if the Elephants were to die as a result of his apples, he would be the fool, and that, if he did such a thing again, I would tell Mr. Harrington. I had disliked him for years, ever since I had seen him set the tail of a dog on fire. Making animals suffer was one of his favourite sports. He often tormented frogs and toads, and I heard that he once poured a bottle of aniseed over the back of a cat when the hounds were running, and they clapped on the drag and tore it to shreds.
One thing which I learnt from Mr. Coad was that, in the Indies, the captive Elephants were regularly ridden like horses, and I was resolved to try my luck in this respect, though the difficulties seemed formidable, and I could not imagine how it was done. None of the horses’ saddles was broad enough for an Elephant’s back, and mounting only seemed possible if the Elephant were to kneel or lie down, or to stand still while a ladder was placed against its side. What perplexed me most was how the rider, once perched aloft, directed his steed. Horses, with their sensitive mouths, are directed largely by means of the bit and bridle and the reins, and perhaps, I said to myself, Elephants equally have sensitive mouths, but it would take a strange bit and bridle to fit on an Elephant. Even if such a bridle could be fitted, looping under the trunk, and even if the Elephant were willing to accept the bit, would anyone hauling on the reins be strong enough to steer such a powerful beast? I had the ankus as a means of chastisement, but what if the Elephant were so maddened by the rider’s presence on its back that it chose to charge away? What if it chose to unseat its rider by rolling on to its back, as horses do when they do not like being mounted? To be rolled upon by an Elephant would surely be fatal. I thought a little further, and saw that an Elephant, if it so wished, might use its trunk to knock the rider from the saddle. My father, with whom I talked this over, felt that the venture was too dangerous to be hazarded; however, I secretly decided to disregard his advice.
With this in mind, I made a rough saddle out of ropes, and fastened it on Jenny’s back, tying it under her stomach. Although she submitted to this readily enough, within a few minutes her trunk was feeling over the knot and soon enough she had it untied. I tied it again, this time much more firmly, and when she attempted to undo it she failed; but Timothy proceeded to untie it for her. This is no good, I said to myself, and tied it once more, this time with the tightest of knots. Next I made a sign telling her to kneel, which she did, and I was able to climb on—although, as I clung on her back, I found myself unable to make her stand up. ‘Stand up! Stand up!’ She remained kneeling, for in my foolishness I had forgotten that she could only obey me when she could see me.
I therefore had to teach my Elephants to understand human speech, by which I mean not the full range of speech, merely particular words and phrases. Again they were excellent pupils, listening to me with great attention, much as a young dog, anxious to please, will cock his ears and listen to every sound which falls from his master’s lips. Within a month I felt ready to hazard another attempt at riding. This time Jenny rose, and now I was eight or ten feet high, leaning over the ridges of her spine, clutching at ropes, and with my legs splayed horribly by the breadth of her back. Bob and Dick were watching; so was Lizzy, who cried up anxiously asking me if I was all right, and I was about to reply when Bob rammed a hot iron into Jenny’s fundament, whereupon she began to lumber forward. Being unable to grip with my legs, as one would grip a horse, and with the saddle not altogether as secure as I had thought it to be, I lost my balance, and slid over the cliff of her back. Though I put my hands out to break my fall, the pain travelled up my arms and into my elbows. As I lay on the ground, Lizzy rounded on Bob, saying that I might have broke my neck, but he laughed in her face; not for long, however, because Timothy, who had been eyeing these events, swung his trunk and knocked him sprawling. He picked himself up and went away cursing and vowing revenge. I was grateful to Timothy for administering such a swift rebuke; but my elbows hurt, and within half an hour my right elbow was swelling. I tried, that is, I endeavoured, to make light of the pain, by pretending that it was merely a bruise, but that night I could scarcely sleep, and I knew that I must have broke a bone in my elbow. While it healed I supported it by means of a cloth knotted round my neck.
When Mr. Harrington heard of my failure, he wrote to Mr. Coad, who kindly drew a sketch of Elephant-riding in the Indies. It shewed a male Elephant, with long tusks, walking in a grove of palm trees. This Elephant was carrying an entire company of passengers, seated in a wooden platform like a broad boat. Such platforms are known in the Hindoo as howdars. In the sketch, the Elephant’s keeper, the mahoot, was seated not on the howdar but on his neck, with his bare feet propped on the bony curves of the Elephant’s ears. This was such an obvious solution to my difficulties that I cursed myself for not thinking of it before and, in spite of the pain in my arm, I took off my shoes and then and there climbed on to Jenny’s neck. I found that, at the narrow junction of the neck, my position was wonderfully comfortable and secure. I could, like the mahoot, rest my feet on her ears, or, if I preferred, I could drop my feet and brace myself with my legs against the sides of her neck. When, by chance, she put down her head, I felt myself in danger of pitching forward and sliding down her trunk, but this was a danger to which I soon accustomed myself; and from this point on I rode the Elephants every day, and what was marvellous and almost incredible, found that I could control them well enough without use of bits or bridles, whips or spurs, or of the ankus, merely by the power of speech.
CHAPTER III (#udd7939ff-3ce7-5bd1-94c4-4371a45587f1)
DURING the second summer which the Elephants spent at Harrington Hall we had a period of very hot dry weather which lasted over a month and half. This both pleased and displeased the farmers, for while it helped ripen the corn it was torture to the sheep on the downs, and their thin cries of distress filled the air. Every pond having shrunk to nothing but a muddy stew, I took the Elephants through the corn-fields to a river about three miles away. The river was shallow, the water coming no more than half way up the Elephants’ legs, but they played in it for many joyful hours, shooting water at each other and hauling up quantities of weed, which they flung high in the air.
There came a day of thunder, heard at a distance of many miles, but drawing steadily closer. Now the Elephants became restive, flapping their ears to keep off the clouds of thunder-flies which plagued their eyes, and as the sky darkened, and the growls and rumbles of thunder grew louder, I put them in the cart-house. I attempted to soothe their emotions by talking in a soft voice and stroking their trunks. No animal likes thunder, and the horses were also anxious, while all the birds fell silent. Flashes lit the sky, and the first huge drops began to splash down; then, after a brief pause, when the storm seemed to draw breath, the rain fell in a torrent, pounding the roof of the cart-house with a deafening noise and spurting as it hit the ground. On a sudden the door flew open and in burst Lizzy, her hair dripping. I gave her a horse-blanket to wrap round her shoulders and sat beside her on a heap of straw. ‘You do not mind me being here?’ she inquired, squeezing her hair and looking at me with her dark eyes.—‘Not at all, why should I? How is Mrs. Harrington today?’—‘Mrs. Harrington has bought herself a new dress and is very pleased with herself,’ she said, and took off her shoes. ‘O, I am soaked! How dark it is! How is your elbow?’—‘My elbow?’ I was surprized; I had forgotten my elbow. ‘It is mended, but still a little stiff.’ I bent it slowly, while she watched; then she drew back her sleeve and shewed her own arm, which was very soft and fair in comparison to mine. Her hair dripped on to my arm, and she brushed it off, and let her hand linger on my arm, and then I thought that I should kiss her, indeed that she would like me to kiss her; but I was too shy, and afraid that, if I did, she would make some joke at my expense. Even so, I might have plucked up courage and kissed her, but the Elephants chose to interrupt us, their trunks sliding over our shoulders and joining our hands. The storm continued for more than an hour; when it was at an end, a band of brilliant yellow light shone from under the dark cloud which was moving away to the east. I let the Elephants into the yard, and they splashed and trampled through the puddles with great relish.
This storm was one of the very few times that I saw the Elephants agitated. Although they started at loud noises, for instance when pheasants burst from the undergrowth, or ring doves clattered with smacking wings from the thickets, they were for the most part very placid and even-tempered. However, on one occasion, when we were riding along a track, Timothy came to an abrupt halt and gave a sharp trumpet. At the same moment he stiffened his trunk and pointed: upon which I, leaning over his head and following its line, saw a large viper coiled in the bracken. I urged him on, but he would not budge, nor would Jenny, who was following close behind, and we had to wait until the viper, perhaps conscious of danger, uncoiled itself and slid away. I conclude from this, that both Elephants knew, either by a kind of instinct or because they had seen snakes in the Indies, that snakes were poisonous, which was remarkable, though even more remarkable, to my mind, was that whenever we passed that same spot, both Elephants remembered the viper and checked stride to see whether it was still there.
In the autumn we sometimes met herds of village pigs, rooting for mast. The Elephants did not like pigs, and would hurl pieces of wood, or stones at them, with great accuracy and force. These pigs soon learnt to avoid us, and whenever we drew near would flee in squealing terror. There were also occasions when we unexpectedly encountered horses. On a day of hard frost, as we were walking through a field of bean stubble, we heard the sound of the chase, and presently the hounds came pouring toward us, hot on the drag and barking furiously. They streamed past, pursued by the horses with their riders who, as always, were shouting and tally-hoing in a state of great excitement. Neither of the Elephants was in the least disturbed by the commotion; but one black mare, upon seeing the Elephants, was so unnerved that it shied and threw its rider, a heavily built gentleman by the name of Dr. Chisholm. Dr. Chisholm lived in Gillerton; he was well known both for his love of food and for his fiery temper. His foot now being caught in the stirrup, he was dragged some way through the mire before the horse came to a halt. Picking himself up, he turned on me in a fury, what the d-v-l did I mean parading my d—ned Elephants here, getting in the way of the chase, etc.—I respectfully replied that I was sorry, I had not known that the chase would be coming this way, to which Dr. Chisholm retorted that in that case I must be deaf. He remounted and galloped off.
I was a good deal troubled by this matter, and feared that Dr. Chisholm would complain to Mr. Harrington. I heard no more of it. However, before long, I had occasion to remember the incident and to wonder about its consequences.
The whole of January 1768 was exceedingly cold, with a bitter north wind, and heavy falls of snow. Every morning, as my father and I walked from Thornhill to the Hall, we came upon the bodies of thrushes and blackbirds frozen stiff, and every evening the sun, sinking through a trench of violet, seemed the colour of blood. Several of the horses having fallen ill with a contagious distemper, I became afraid for the safety of the Elephants who, without the protection of a coat of hair, or fur, were exposed to the full rigour of the cold; and though I kept them in the cart-house, and wrapped them in horse-blankets, they were listless and miserable. I could understand the depression of their spirits, for they were used to the heat of the Indies. When the cold deepened, a fine powdery snow blowing through the edges of the door, I lit two small stoves, though it worried me perpetually that the Elephants might accidentally knock a stove over, and set fire to the straw. For this reason I stayed with them all night, rising from my bed to stoke the fires, or to give the embers a puff with the bellows.
My father confidently expected the weather to change with the new moon, which fell I think sometime after the middle of the month, and indeed there began a thaw shortly afterward; however, soon the cold returned harder than ever, with the same piercing wind. Mr. Harrington had not gone to Bristol, for Mrs. Harrington was about to give birth; and I remember that, to test the depth of the cold, he carried out an experiment, placing three glasses of different liquids in the open air: the glass of water froze in six minutes, hard enough to bear a five shilling piece upon it; the glass of port wine froze in two hours, and the glass of brandy in six hours. By now this persistent weather was becoming a serious matter for farmers, even worse than the summer’s drought. Mr. Harrington’s barns were well provisioned with hay, but many farmers had little or no hay left and could not afford to buy more, prices being so high; moreover, in the fields the turnips had frozen to solid blocks, which left the sheep without food. People prayed for milder weather, however when the thaw came, in the middle of February, the turnips had rotted in the ground and were pulpy and worthless, and many sheep died of starvation.
Before this thaw both Elephants did fall ill, as I had feared. The first to sicken was Timothy, whom I found with his head hanging and eyes closed, and when I offered him a carrot he declined. Soon Jenny too fell ill, and when both animals lay down, I became very afraid that they had lain down to die. With my father’s help I opened their mouths, and poured cordials of milk, peppermint and honey down their throats. The horses had been bled, as a matter of course, and my father was in favour of bleeding the Elephants; a suitable vein, he believed, lay in the roots of each ear. I was reluctant to bleed, for fear that it would be impossible to stanch the flow; however, my father urging strongly, I gave way. We bled Timothy first, and hit the vein at once. The blood was dark and very rich, and we succeeded in drawing off a full three pints of blood. When we came to Jenny, the first blow missed the vein but struck with the second, and though her blood was less rich and flowed sluggishly we took two pints. I should mention here the old story that the blood of an Elephant is colder than that of any other animal, but this is entirely untrue, it is as warm as that of a horse.
After this, there was little more that we could do. My father left, but I stayed with them. Sometimes I rested my hand against one or other of their chests to feel that their great hearts were still thundering away, and sometimes I talked to them, which, while helping them not at all, seemed to relieve my anxiety. To keep out the chill I let no one into the cart-house save for my father and Mr. Harrington, and Joshua, who made me kneel and say another prayer on their behalf.
Soon after their recovery, my father fell ill. First, he complained of pains shooting through his legs, next, that he was hot and giddy. Since he had always enjoyed good health, I was surprized but not greatly concerned, for, as I say, I was still thinking of the Elephants. He went home and, taking to his bed, sank into a fever. This being the middle of the day, my mother became very alarmed, and began to think of fetching the doctor—the same Dr. Chisholm whom I mentioned earlier—however, before doing so, she consulted Mrs. Perry, as she did on every matter. Mrs. Perry bustled up and, looking at my father, declared that the fever was not serious, she would stake her life on it being no more than a severe cold with a touch of ague. All this I had from Jim, my brother, who was at home, for in such weather there was little to be done in the gardens. As the afternoon wore on, my father continued to decline, and in the evening, despite Mrs. Perry’s repeated reassurances, my mother sent my brother through the snow to Gillerton, where Dr. Chisholm lived. Dr. Chisholm being at table, Jim was told to wait. More than two hours passed before Dr. Chisholm appeared—patting his mouth with a napkin—to ask what the matter was. My brother told him.—‘And what is your father’s name? Ah yes—he is the father of the Elephant keeper, is he not? Well, let us hope he is not ill with the dreaded Elephant Fever. I cannot come now, young man, but I shall come to him later.’
My brother returning home, gave this message to my mother: ‘Dr. Chisholm is coming later.’—‘But could he not come at once?’—‘No, he is at table, but he will come later. He says that Father may have Elephant Fever.’ My mother, very frightened, cried out, ‘What is that?’ Upon which my brother told her, that it was a special disease which human beings caught from Elephants.
Since I had stayed the night at the cart-house, I knew none of this; however, shortly before day-break, Jim appeared, and told me that I must come home at once, bringing a piece of one of Timothy’s tusks. It seems that Mrs. Perry now believed my father would only be saved if he were given a medicinal potion made of powdered tusk. This was utter folly, I did not believe a word of it; even if it were true, Timothy would not have stood idly by and allowed me to saw off his tusk. Jim then mentioned that, as he had returned through the snow from Gillerton, he had been followed by a light. I asked, what sort of light; he did not know, but it was a dancing light, like a will o’ the wisp. I said to myself, it is probably no more than the frozen crust of snow glistening in the light of the young moon; but I knew that Jim believed it to be an omen of our father’s death.
I hurried home. My father lay in the icy bed-room, and while my mother moaned and shook, Mrs. Perry held sway, muttering spells and incantations. ‘I knew it would happen. The Elephants! The Elephants! Where is the tusk?’ When I said that I had not brought any tusk, my mother begged me to run back and fetch some, for my father’s life hung by a thread. I told her that I could not do so, that the Elephant was the property of Mr. Harrington; whereupon she cried out that I must ask Mr. Harrington. I did what I could to calm her and then attended to my father, who was burning hot, and in the absence of Dr. Chisholm, who had still not visited, I resolved to bleed him. Having fetched a knife, I laid bare his arm. ‘It will do no good!’ cried Mrs. Perry, ‘he has Elephant Fever!’ and my mother wailed that I was not a doctor, that we must wait for the doctor. ‘For how long? We cannot wait,’ I said.—‘We must wait!’—‘But if we wait—the longer we wait—we cannot wait.’
We waited a few minutes, during which I felt my father’s pulse, which was running very fast and intermittent, and I then said that I did not think we should delay any longer, that he must be bled, and I stretched out his arm. However, my mother cried out, ‘O! I hear him! O! He is come!’ running to the window and scratching at the frost flakes; but she was mistaken. ‘O Tom you must go and fetch him!’—‘But Jim has been!’—‘Then where is he? Why has he not come? Why? O! O!’ for my poor father had given a kind of low groan, and she flung herself in agonies over the bed. ‘O! Timothy! You must not leave me! You must not!’ As I stood back, knife in hand, I noticed Jim’s wan face and wondered whether, when he had spoken to Dr. Chisholm, he had conveyed with sufficient force the desperate nature of my father’s condition. Yet there was another suspicion which crossed my mind, that the doctor had decided to ignore my father’s illness, on account of what had happened with the Elephants when he was hunting. However, this may be to do Dr. Chisholm an injustice, for he did indeed arrive at the cottage about noon, though by then it was too late. It seems that he had been urgently called to attend to a gentleman by the name of Mr. Rogers, who had slipped in the snow and bruised an ankle.
I will pass over the melancholy details of my father’s death. His burial had to be delayed for two weeks, the ground being as hard as stone, even a pick would not penetrate it; during this period he lay stiff and frozen in his bed. My poor mother was greatly distracted and would not enter the room on any account; nor would she allow a single fire to be lit in the cottage, despite the extreme cold, and when Jim and I came to carry him down the stairs, she cried, ‘O, do not hurt him!’ After the burial, she begged me not to go on working any longer with the Elephants, for fear that I would catch the same deadly Elephant Fever. Indeed, she was certain that I would catch it. She said, through her tears, that she had known from the beginning that the Elephants were dangerous and that no good would come of them; for an angel had warned Mrs. Perry in a dream, and Mrs. Perry had warned my mother, and my mother had warned me and my father, but neither of us would pay any heed, and now the best husband anyone had ever had was dead and cold, and I would die too, that was all but certain, and she would be left with Jim, who was no help to anyone, and she did not know what she would do. I attempted to reassure her; but she was deaf to all consolation, crying out that it did not matter what happened to her, since she would not be alive for much longer.
The story that the Elephants had been the cause of my father’s death was quickly spread by wagging tongues; chiefly, no doubt, that belonging to Mrs. Perry, but by others too; so that for a time it was generally believed that even to go near the Elephants was dangerous, while to breathe in a single particle of their breaths (which, in the frosty air, billowed from their mouths in clouds) was fatal. They were seen as walking contagions, and shunned by everyone but me; indeed I was also widely shunned, with people saying that, if I had only cut off a piece of Timothy’s tusk, my father would still be alive, and that I could not have loved him enough. This was a most unjust charge, for I had loved my father as faithfully as any son could have done. I was greatly troubled on my own account, but also on that of the Elephants: when I looked at them and indeed, when they looked at me, with their sad, wrinkled eyes, I felt a kind of horror. How will you survive, I thought, with such a deadly reputation? At the same time, there was something that made me doubt—not that Elephant Fever existed, but that it could have led to my father’s death. I questioned my brother Jim, who repeated to me the exact words used by Dr. Chisholm: ‘Let us hope he is not ill with the dreaded Elephant Fever.’ I said to Jim, ‘Then we do not know for certain that he died of Elephant Fever.’ Jim agreed that we did not know for certain.
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Christopher Nicholson
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: I asked the sailor what an Elephant looked like; he replied that it was like nothing on earth.In the middle of the 18th century, a ship docks at Bristol with an extraordinary cargo: two young elephants. Bought by a wealthy landowner, they are taken to his estate in the English countryside. A stable boy, Tom Page, is given the task of caring for them.The Elephant Keeper is Tom’s account of his life with the elephants. As the years pass, and as they journey across England, his relationship with the female elephant deepens in a startling manner. Along the way they meet incredulity, distrust and tragedy, and it is only their understanding of each other that keeps them together.Christopher Nicholson’s charming and captivating novel explores notions of sexuality and violence, freedom and captivity, and the nature of story-telling – but most of all it is the study of a profound and remarkable love between an elephant and a human being.