United States or Zambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
FORBES, in his Oriental Memoirs, quotes this passage of the Ayeen Akbery, but without a remark; nor does any European writer with whose works I am acquainted appear to have been cognisant of the peculiarity in question. It is to be hoped that Professor OWEN'S dissection of the young elephant, recently arrived, may serve to decide this highly interesting point.
I have elsewhere described the occurrence to which I was myself a witness , of elephants inserting their proboscis in their mouths, and withdrawing gallons of water, which could only have been contained in the receptacle figured by CAMPER and HOME, and of which the true uses were discerned by the clear intellect of Professor OWEN. I was not, till very recently, aware that a similar observation as to the remarkable habit of the elephant, had been made by the author of the Ayeen Akbery, in his account of the Feel Kaneh, or elephant stables of the Emperor Akbar, in which he says, "an elephant frequently with his trunk takes water out of his stomach and sprinkles himself with it, and it is not in the least offensive."
Word Of The Day