als whose structure is designed to
facilitate agility and speed. In them the various bones of the shoulder
and fore limbs, especially the clavicle and humerus, are set at such an
angle, that the shock in descending is modified, and the joints and
sockets protected from the injury occasioned by concussion. But in the
elephant, where the weight of the body is immense, the bones of the leg,
in order to present solidify and strength to sustain it, are built in
one firm and perpendicular column; instead of being placed somewhat
obliquely at their points of contact. Thus whilst the force of the
weight in descending is broken and distributed by this arrangement in
the case of the horse; it would be so concentrated in the elephant as to
endanger every joint from the toe to the shoulder.]

[Illustration]

It is to the structure of the knee-joint that the elephant is indebted
for his singular facility in ascending and descending steep activities,
climbing rocks and traversing precipitous ledges, where even a mule dare
not venture; and this again leads to the correction of another generally
received error, that his legs are "formed more for strength than
flexibility, and fitted to bear an enormous weight upon a level surface,
without the necessity of ascending or descending great acclivities."[1]
The same authority assumes that, although the elephant is found in the
neighbourhood of mountainous ranges, and will even ascend rocky passes,
such a service is a violation of its natural habits.

[Footnote 1: _Menageries, &c_., "The Elephant," ch. ii.]

Of the elephant of Africa I am not qualified to speak, nor of the nature
of the ground which it most frequents; but certainly the facts in
connection with the elephant of India are all irreconcilable with the
theory mentioned above. In Bengal, in the Nilgherries, in Nepal, in
Burmah, in Siam, Sumatra, and Ceylon, the districts in which the
elephants most abound, are all hilly and mountainous. In the latter,
especially, there is not a range so elevated as to be inaccessible to
them. On the very summit of Adam's Peak, at an altitude of 7,420 feet,
and on a pinnacle which the pilgrims climb with difficulty, by means of
steps hewn in the rock, Major Skinner, in 1840, found the spoor of an
elephant.

Prior to 1840, and before coffee-plantations had been extensively opened
in the Kandyan ranges, there was not a mountain or a lofty feature of
land of Ceylon which they had not traversed, in