he
has balanced in his own mind the comparative advantages of each. An
elephant appears on all occasions to comprehend the purpose and object
that he is expected to promote, and hence he voluntarily executes a
variety of details without any guidance whatever from his keeper. This
is one characteristic in which this animal manifests a superiority over
the horse; although his strength in proportion to his weight is not so
great as that of the latter.

[Footnote 1: A correspondent informs me that on the Malabar coast of
India, the elephant, when employed in dragging stones, moves them by
means of a rope, which he either draws with his forehead, or manages by
seizing it in his teeth.]

His minute motions when engrossed by such operations, the activity of
his eye, and the earnestness of his attitudes, can only be comprehended
by being seen. In moving timber and masses of rock his trunk is the
instrument on which he mainly relies, but those which have tusks turn
them to good account. To get a weighty stone out of a hollow an elephant
will kneel down so as to apply the pressure of his head to move it
upwards, then steadying it with one foot till he can raise himself, he
will apply a fold of his trunk to shift it to its place, and fit it
accurately in position: this done, he will step round to view it on
either side, and adjust it with due precision. He appears to gauge his
task by his eye, and to form a judgment whether the weight be
proportionate to his strength. If doubtful of his own power, he
hesitates and halts, and if urged against his will, he roars and shows
temper.

In clearing an opening through forest land, the power of the African
elephant, and the strength ascribed to him by a recent traveller, as
displayed in uprooting trees, have never been equalled or approached by
anything I have seen of the elephant in Ceylon[1] or heard of them in
India.

[Footnote 1: "Here the trees were large and handsome, but not strong
enough to resist the inconceivable strength of the mighty monarch of
these forests; almost every tree had half its branches broken short by
them and at every hundred yards I came upon entire trees, and these,
_the largest in the forest_, uprooted clean out of the ground, and
_broken short across their stems_."--_A Hunter's Life in South Africa_.
By R. GORDON CUMMING, vol. ii. p. 305.--

"Spreading out from one another, they smash and destroy all the finest
trees in the forest which happen to be in t