“Spreading out from one another, they smash and destroy all the finest trees in the forest which happen to be in their course....  I have rode through forests where the trees thus broken lay so thick across one another, that it was almost impossible to ride through the district.”—­Ibid., p. 310.

Mr. Gordon Cumming does not name the trees which he saw thus “uprooted” and “broken across,” nor has he given any idea of their size and weight; but Major DENHAM, who observed like traces of the elephant in Africa, saw only small trees overthrown by them; and Mr. PRINGLE, who had an opportunity of observing similar practices of the animals in the neutral territory of the Eastern frontier of the Cape of Good Hope, describes their ravages as being confined to the mimosas, “immense numbers of which had been torn out of the ground, and placed in an inverted position, in order to enable the animals to browse at their ease on the soft and juicy roots, which form a favourite part of their food.  Many of the larger mimosas had resisted all their efforts; and indeed, it is only after heavy rain, when the soil is soft and loose, that they ever successfully attempt this operation.”—­Pringle’s Sketches of South Africa.]

Of course much must depend on the nature of the timber and the moisture of the soil; thus a strong tree on the verge of a swamp may be overthrown with greater ease than a small and low one in parched and solid ground.  I have seen no “tree” deserving the name, nothing but jungle and brushwood, thrown down by the mere movement of an elephant without some special exertion of force.  But he is by no means fond of gratuitously tasking his strength; and food being so abundant that he obtains it without an effort, it is not altogether apparent, even were he able to do so, why he should assail “the largest trees in the forest,” and encumber his own haunts with their broken stems; especially as there is scarcely anything which an elephant dislikes more than venturing amongst fallen timber.

A tree of twelve inches in diameter resisted successfully the most strenuous struggles of the largest elephant I ever saw led to it; and when directed by their keepers to clear away jungle, the removal of even a small tree, or a healthy young coco-nut palm, is a matter both of time and exertion.  Hence the services of an elephant are of much less value in clearing a forest than in dragging and piling felled timber.  But in the latter occupation he manifests an intelligence and dexterity which is surprising to a stranger, because the sameness of the operation enables the animal to go on for hours disposing of log after log, almost without a hint or direction from his attendant.  For example, two elephants employed in piling ebony and satinwood in the yards attached to the commissariat stores at Colombo, were so accustomed to their work, that they were able to accomplish it with equal precision and with greater rapidity than if it had been done by dock-labourers.  When the pile attained a certain height, and they were no longer able by their conjoint efforts to raise one of the heavy logs of ebony to the summit, they had been taught to lean two pieces against the heap, up the inclined plane of which they gently rolled the remaining logs, and placed them trimly on the top.