The first employment to which an elephant is put is to tread clay in a brick-field, or to draw a waggon in double harness with a tame companion.  But the work in which the display of sagacity renders his labours of the highest value, is that which involves the use of heavy materials; and hence in dragging and piling timber, or moving stones[1] for the construction of retaining walls and the approaches to bridges, his services in an unopened country are of the utmost importance.  When roads are to be constructed along the face of steep declivities, and the space is so contracted that risk is incurred either of the working elephant falling over the precipice or of rocks slipping down from above, not only are the measures to which he resorts the most judicious and reasonable that could be devised, but if urged by his keeper to adopt any other, he manifests a reluctance sufficient to show that 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.—­