“When the poor animals had gained possession of the tank (the leader being the last to enter), they seemed to abandon themselves to enjoyment without restraint or apprehension of danger.  Such a mass of animal life I had never before seen huddled together in so narrow a space.  It seemed to me as though they would have nearly drunk the tank dry.  I watched them with great interest until they had satisfied themselves as well in bathing as in drinking, when I tried how small a noise would apprise them of the proximity of unwelcome neighbours.  I had but to break a little twig, and the solid mass instantly took to flight like a herd of frightened deer, each of the smaller calves being apparently shouldered and carried along between two of the older ones."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Letter from Major SKINNER.]

In drinking, the elephant, like the camel, although preferring water pure, shows no decided aversion to it when discoloured with mud[1]; and the eagerness with which he precipitates himself into the tanks and streams attests his exquisite enjoyment of the fresh coolness, which to him is the chief attraction.  In crossing deep rivers, although his rotundity and buoyancy enable him to swim with a less immersion than other quadrupeds, he generally prefers to sink till no part of his huge body is visible except the tip of his trunk, through which he breathes, moving beneath the surface, and only now and then raising his head to look that he is keeping the proper direction.[2] In the dry season the scanty streams which, during the rains, are sufficient to convert the rivers of the low country into torrents, often entirely disappear, leaving only broad expanses of dry sand, which they have swept down with them from the hills.  In this the elephants contrive to sink wells for their own use by scooping out the sand to the depth of four or five feet, and leaving a hollow for the percolation of the spring.  But as the weight of the elephant would force in the side if left perpendicular, one approach is always formed with such a gradient that he can reach the water with his trunk without disturbing the surrounding sand.

[Footnote 1:  This peculiarity was known in the middle ages, and PHILE, writing in the fourteenth century, says, that such is his preference, for muddy water that the elephant stirs it before he drinks.

[Greek: 

“Ydor de pineisynchythen prin anpinoi
To gar dieides akribos diaptuei.”]

         —­PHILE de Eleph., i. 144.]

[Footnote 2:  A tame elephant, when taken by his keepers to be bathed, and to have his skin washed and rubbed, lies down on his side, pressing his head to the bottom under water, with only the top of his trunk protruded, to breathe.]

[Illustration]