The Massachusetts Spy, And Worcester County Advertiser

From Courier's Animal Kingdom.
INTELLECT OF BRUTES.
The Elephant. Some young camels belonging to a much respected friend of the editor, were travelling with the British army, when they had occasion to cross the Jumna in a flat bottomed boat; the novelty of the thing excited their fears to such a degree, that it seemed impossible to drive or induce them to enter the boat spontaneously; upon which one of the mahouts, or elephant keepers, called to his elephant, and desired him to drive them in: the animal immediately put on a furious appearance, trumpeted with his proboscis, shook his ears, roared, struck the ground to the right and left, and blew the dust in clouds towards them; and so effectually subdued one great fear in the refractory camels by exciting a greater, that they bolted into the boat in the greatest hurry,—when the elephant reassumed his composure, and deliberately walked back to his post. The same elephant was appealed to by his mahout to remove a branch from a tree which hung too low to raise the tent pole: the animal looked at the pole as if measuring it with his eye, then at the tree and impending branch; he then turned his rump towards the trunk of the tree, stepped a couple of paces forward, took the branch in his trunk, and felt, as if examining where it would split off; finding it easy at this place he moved a little back to where it was thicker: then taking a firm hold, he gave it three or four successive swings, increasing his force, till with one very powerful effort it tore and fell on the ground. Being appealed to remove another branch, still higher, he looked up, stretched his proboscis, and caught only a twig or two and some leaves; he was urged again—he shook his ears and gave a piping sound of displeasure; but the mahout insisting, after another vain attempt, he caught the bearing pole of a dooly (a kind of palanquin,) and shook it with violence, making a poor sick soldier immediately start out of it: the hint was sufficient—he would not be trifled with.
At the siege of Bhurtpore, in the year 1805, an affair occurred between two elephants, which displays at once the character and capability of these curious animals. The British army, with its countless host of followers and attendants, and thousands of cattle, had been for a long time before the city, when, on the approach of the hot season, and of the dry hot winds, the supply of water in the neighborhood of the camp, necessary, for the supply of so many beings, began to fail; the ponds or tanks had dried up, and no more water was left than the immense wells of the country would furnish. The multitude of men and cattle that were unceasingly at the wells, particularly the largest, occasioned no inconsiderable struggle for the priority in procuring the supply, for which each were there to seek, and the consequent confusion on the spot was frequently very considerable. On one occasion, two elephant drivers, each with his elephant,—the one remarkably large and strong, and the other comparatively small and weak,—were at the well together: the small elephant had been provided by his master with a bucket, for the occasion, which he carried at the end of his proboscis; but the larger animal, being destitute of this necessary vessel, either spontaneously or by desire of his keeper seized the bucket, and easily wrested it away from his less powerful fellow servant: the latter was too sensible of his inferiority, openly to resent the insult, though it is obvious that he felt it; but great squabbling and abuse ensued between the keepers. At length, the weaker animal, watching the opportunity when the other was standing with his side to the well, retired backwards a few paces, in a very quiet, unsuspicious manner, and then pushing forward with all his might, drove his head against the side of the other and fairly pushed him into the well. It may easily be imagined that great inconvenience was immediately experienced, and serious apprehensions quickly followed, that the water in the well, on which the existence of so many seemed in a great measure to depend, would be spoiled, or at least injured, by the unwieldy brute which was precipitated into it; and the surface of the water was nearly twenty feet below the common level, there did not appear to be any means that could be adopted to get the animal out by main force, at least without injuring him: there were many feet of water below the elephant, who floated with ease on its surface, and, experiencing considerable pleasure from his cool retreat, evinced but little inclination even to exert what means he might possess in himself of escape. A vast number of fascines had been employed by the army in conducting the siege, and at length it occurred to the elephant-keeper that a sufficient number of these (which may be compared to bundles of wood) might be lowered into the well to make a pile, which might be raised to the top, if the animal could be instructed as to the necessary means of laying them in regular succession under his feet. Permission having been obtained from the engineer officers to use the fascines, the keeper had to teach this elephant the lesson, which by means of that extraordinary ascendency these men attain over the elephants, joined with the intellectual resources of the animal itself, he was soon enabled to do; and the elephant began quickly to place each fascine as it was lowered to him successively under him, until in a little time he was enabled to stand upon them: by this time, however, the cunning brute, enjoying the cool pleasure of his situation, after the heat and partial privation of water, to which he had been lately exposed, (they are observed, in their natural state to frequent rivers, and to swim very often,) was unwilling to work any longer, and all the threats of his keeper could not induce him to place another fascine. The man then opposed cunning to cunning, and began to caress and praise the elephant, and what he could not effect by threats he was enabled to do by the repeated promises of plenty of rack. Incited by this the animal again went to work, raised himself considerably higher, until by a partial removal of the masonry round the top of the well, he was enabled to step out: the whole affair occupied about fourteen hours.