The prejudice has probably been derived from India, and the Indian islands, where troops of
elephants, noble forests, and impenetrable jungles, are associated together in every one's mind.
"But why do they thrust into the heads of
elephants?"
"Yes," said Big Toomai, his driver, the son of Black Toomai who had taken him to Abyssinia, and grandson of Toomai of the
Elephants who had seen him caught, "there is nothing that the Black Snake fears except me.
Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making fun of the other
elephants who had just set to work.
Finding that, if anything, it blew from the
elephants to us, we crept on stealthily, and thanks to the cover managed to get within forty yards or so of the great brutes.
The
elephant, which its owner had reared, not for a beast of burden, but for warlike purposes, was half domesticated.
The
elephant was now making some headway, and soon reached a clearing where his whole body could be seen.
It is no child's play to hunt wild
elephants with the crude weapons of primitive man.
"Bara, the deer, is less fearful than you--you, Tantor, the
elephant, greatest of the jungle folk with the strength of as many Numas as I have toes upon my feet and fingers upon my hands.
At last his listening ears were rewarded by the sound they craved--the trumpeting of a bull
elephant, and a few moments later Korak broke through the trees into the presence of Tantor, standing with upraised trunk, waving his great ears.
The boon companion of the colossal
elephant was a common cat!
"Portrait of a gentleman on an
elephant. Who'll bid for the gentleman on the
elephant?