s of
turnips, rice, chaff, bran, hay, and sea biscuit. Straw is allowed for
his bed, which is generally consumed before morning; besides which, when
they are in menageries they receive no small quantity of dainties from
visitors. I never could enter the Rotunda in the Paris menagerie,
without being furnished with bread or carrots for its inhabitants: the
instant the Indian elephant caught sight of me, he used to sit down, get
up again, make what was called a curtsy, and play other antics; and the
instant I came before him, squat down again; his trunk raised, and his
enormous mouth wide open to receive what I threw into it; the attitude
was so grotesque and imploring, that it was impossible to deny him. In
their native condition, elephants eat the young juicy roots, and
branches of trees; the latter of which, they beat two or three times
before they take them, and they then tuck them into the left side of
their mouths; they also devour grass, and bulbous roots, which they pull
up with their proboscis. The vast numbers in which the herds assemble,
give some idea of the extent of the vegetable riches which can support
such colossal eaters from generation to generation; the weight of an
ordinary one will be 7000 lbs, and the mind becomes bewildered, in
thinking of the quantity required for the daily sustenance of thousands
of such animals. They open paths through forests which would be
impenetrable to others; and seem to exercise much judgment in choosing
their route, the large bull elephants taking the lead, crushing the
jungle, tearing down the branches, and uprooting the trees; the females
and the young sometimes amounting to three hundred, march after in
single file, and the way thus made is as smooth as a gravel walk. They
often carry branches of trees, with which they flap the insects from
their bodies as they walk along.

A settler's wife complained to Mr. Pringle very bitterly, of the
destruction occasioned to her husband's crops by the elephants; which
she, with reason, said were too big to wrestle with, and they
occasionally seemed to commit mischief from mere wantonness. In the same
place, a troop came down one dark and rainy night to the outskirts of
the village; but knowing that it was sometimes dangerous to encounter
them, the inhabitants did not go out; although they heard them making a
terrible bellowing and uproar. It appeared the next morning, that one of
the elephants had fallen into an unfinished trench,