The Elephant Keeper Read online

  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 its 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 that 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. Harringto
n 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 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 holes, 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.