The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

Adult male elephants are among the most dangerous of all wild animals to keep in captivity. They will grow bad- tempered with adult age, keepers will become careless of danger that is present every day, and a bad elephant often is a cunning and deceitful devil. The strength of an elephant is so great, the toughness of its hide is so pronounced, and the danger of a sudden attack is so permanent that life in a park with a "bad" elephant is one continuous nightmare. Naturally we have been ambitious to prevent all manner of fatal wild beast attacks upon our keepers. We try our best to provide for their safety, and having done that to the limit we say: "Now it is up to you to preserve your own life. If you can not save yourself from your bad animals, no other person can do it for you!" Either positively, comparatively or superlatively, a bad elephant is a cunning, treacherous and dangerous animal. We have seen several elephants in various stages of cussedness. Alice, the adult Indian female, is mentally a freak, but she is not vicious save under one peculiar combination of circumstances. Take her outside her yard, and instantly she becomes a storm centre. Gunda was bad to begin with, worse in continuation and murderously worst at his finish. At present Kartoum is dangerous only to inanimate fences and doors. A wild elephant attacks a hunter by charging furiously and persistently, sometimes making a real man-chase, seizing the man or knocking him down, and then impaling him upon his tusks as he lies. More than one hunter has been knocked down, and escaped the impalement thrust only through the mercy of heaven that caused the tusks to miss him and expend their murderous fury in the ample earth.