Kari the Elephant Part 1

Kari the Elephant.

by Dhan Gopal Mukerji.

CHAPTER I

BRINGING UP KARI

Kari, the elephant, was five months old when he was given to me to take care of. I was nine years old and I could reach his back if I stood on tiptoe. He seemed to remain that high for nearly two years. Perhaps we grew together; that is probably why I never found out just how tall he was. He lived in a pavilion, under a thatched roof which rested on thick tree stumps so that it could not fall in when Kari b.u.mped against the poles as he moved about.

One of the first things Kari did was to save the life of a boy.

Kari did not eat much but he nevertheless needed forty pounds of twigs a day to chew and play with. Every day I used to take him to the river in the morning for his bath. He would lie down on the sand bank while I rubbed him with the clean sand of the river for an hour. After that he would lie in the water for a long time. On coming out his skin would be shining like ebony, and he would squeal with pleasure as I rubbed water down his back. Then I would take him by the ear, because that is the easiest way to lead an elephant, and leave him on the edge of the jungle while I went into the forest to get some luscious twigs for his dinner.

One has to have a very sharp hatchet to cut down these twigs; it takes half an hour to sharpen the hatchet because if a twig is mutilated an elephant will not touch it.

When one goes into the jungle, one must remember that there are laws one cannot break. Do you know that anyone who is afraid or who hates one of the animals of the jungle gives out an odor which attracts tigers and wolves? Every day that I was afraid to go into the jungle, I did not dare to stay on the ground for fear lest the tigers would smell my presence and attack me. I climbed a tree instead, because when one is in a tree the odor of one's body does not go into the forest, and the animals cannot tell whether one is afraid or not.

It was not an easy job, as you see, to get twigs and saplings for Kari. I had to climb all kinds of trees to get the most delicate and tender twigs. As he was very fond of the young branches of the banyan tree which grows like a cathedral of leaves and branches, I was gathering some, one spring day in March, when I suddenly heard Kari calling to me in the distance. As he was still very young, the call was more like that of a baby than an elephant. I thought somebody was hurting him, so I came down from my tree and ran very fast to the edge of the forest where I had left him, but he was not there.

I looked all over, but I could not find him. I went near the edge of the water, and I saw a black something struggling above its surface. Then it rose higher and it was the trunk of my elephant. I thought he was drowning. I was helpless because I could not jump into the water and save his four hundred pounds since he was much higher than I. But I saw his back rise above the water and the moment he caught my eye, he began to trumpet and struggle up to the sh.o.r.e. Then, still trumpeting, he pushed me into the water and as I fell into the stream I saw a boy lying flat on the bottom of the river. He had not altogether touched bottom but was somewhat afloat. I came to the surface of the water to take my breath and there Kari was standing, his feet planted into the sand bank and his trunk stretched out like a hand waiting for mine. I dove down again and pulled the body of the drowning boy to the surface, but not being a good swimmer, I could not swim ash.o.r.e and the slow current was already dragging me down. I clutched at reeds on the sh.o.r.e but they broke and the weight of the boy was tiring out one hand while the other was already weak from excessive swimming and clutching at the reeds.

Seeing us drift by in the current, Kari who was usually so slow and ponderous, suddenly darted down like a hawk and came halfway into the water where I saw him stretch out his trunk again. I raised up my hand to catch it and it slipped. I found myself going under the water again, but this time I found that the water was not very deep so I sank to the bottom of the river and doubled my feet under me and then suddenly kicked the river bed and so shot upwards like an arrow, in spite of the fact that I was holding the drowning boy with my hand. As my body rose above the water, I felt a la.s.so around my neck. This frightened me; I thought some water animal was going to swallow me. I heard the squealing of Kari, and I knew it was his trunk about my neck. He pulled us both ash.o.r.e.

As the boy lay stretched on the ground I recognized the cowherd.

He had gone to bathe in the river, had slipped too far out, and not knowing how to swim had almost been drowned. I put him flat on his face on the sand and the elephant put his trunk about his waist and lifted it gently up and down, and then up again. After doing this three or four times, the water began to come out of the boy's mouth and, not knowing what else to do because his body was cold, I slapped him very hard all over. After that I propped him up against the elephant's leg. Then the boy slowly came to.

In the meantime all his cows had wandered away in different directions. As I thought some had gone into the jungle, where I was afraid they might be eaten up by tigers, I sent Kari to bring them back to the river bank. But Kari got lost himself; so when the cowherd had recovered entirely, I went to look for his cows and my lost elephant. Where do you think I found him? He had gone right into the forest where I had left the saplings and the twigs and had buried his trunk into the heap and was eating the best of them, without any concern for the cows, the cowherd or myself.

But I could not punish him that day because he had done his duty by saving the life of the boy.

Kari was like a baby. He had to be trained to be good and if you did not tell him when he was naughty, he was up to more mischief than ever.

For instance, one day somebody gave him some bananas to eat. Very soon he developed a great love for ripe bananas. We used to keep large plates of fruit on a table near a window in the dining-room. One day all the bananas on that table disappeared and my family blamed the servants for eating all the fruit in the house. A few days later the fruit disappeared again; this time the blame was put on me, and I knew I had not done it. It made me very angry with my parents and the servants, for I was sure they had taken all the fruit. The next time the fruit disappeared, I found a banana all smashed up in Kari's pavilion. This surprised me very much, for I had never seen fruit there, and as you know, he had always lived on twigs.

Next day while I was sitting in the dining-room wondering whether I should take some fruit from the table without my parents'

permission, a long, black thing, very much like a snake suddenly came through the window and disappeared with all the bananas. I was very much frightened because I had never seen snakes eat bananas and I thought it must be a terrible snake that would sneak in and take fruit. I crept out of the room and with great fear in my heart ran out of the house, feeling sure that the snake would come back into the house, eat all the fruit and kill all of us.

As I went out, I saw Kari's back disappearing in the direction of the pavilion and I was so frightened that I wanted his company to cheer me up. I ran after him into the pavilion and I found him there eating bananas. I stood still in astonishment; the bananas were lying strewn all around him. He stretched out his trunk and reached for one far away from where he was standing. That instant the trunk looked like a black snake, and I realized that Kari was the thief. I went to him, pulled him out by the ear and joyously showed my parents that it was Kari and not I that had eaten all the fruit these many weeks. Then I scolded him, for elephants understand words as well as children, and I said to him, "Next time I see you stealing fruit, you will be whipped."

He knew that we were all angry with him, even the servants. His pride was so injured that he never stole another thing from the dining-room. And from then on, if anybody gave him any fruit, he always squealed as if to thank them.

An elephant is willing to be punished for having done wrong, but if you punish him without any reason, he will remember it and pay you back in your own coin.

Once I had taken him to bathe in the river; this was summer vacation and several boys came with me to help. Kari lay on the bank and we rubbed him all over with sand. Then he went into the water and most of us began to play. As Kari came up from the water, one of the boys, named Sudu, was standing on the bank. For no reason at all he hit the elephant three or four times with his whip. Kari squealed and ran away. I brought him home.

The next summer Kari had grown so big and fat that I could not reach his back even when I stood on tiptoe. We used to take him out wherever we went, sometimes one riding on his back, sometimes all walking along with him. We gave him luscious twigs if he behaved well and sometimes delicious fruit. Once in a great while as a special treat we would ma.s.sage his chest with straw and he would squeal with joy and lie on his back as best he could with his fat legs, staring at the sun.

One day Sudu was standing on the river bank where I had just taken the elephant to give him his bath. That day Kari had been very good, so we prepared a straw ma.s.sage for him. As it was very hot, however, we plunged into the river ourselves before giving him his bath, leaving Sudu and the elephant on the bank. Without warning, Kari rushed at him like a mad bull, threw his trunk about Sudu's neck, flung him into the water, and held him there for a long, long time. When Sudu was finally pulled out of the water and stretched on the ground, he was nearly senseless.

[Ill.u.s.tration: KARI PUNISHES SUDU]

When Sudu asked me whether I would punish Kari for having disgraced him in public like that, I answered that the elephant was not rude. When Sudu asked me why, I said, "Don't you remember about a year ago you whipped him for no reason at all, almost on the exact spot where he has just punished you?" Sudu felt so ashamed of himself that he got angry with all of us and went home alone. But by the next day, we had made it all up and the elephant had forgiven him. As a proof of friendship, when we went to the jungle on a picnic, Kari carried Sudu on his back. Since that day Sudu has never hurt a living creature.

An elephant must be taught when to sit down, when to walk, when to go fast, and when to go slow. You teach him these things as you teach a child. If you say "Dhat" and pull him by the ear, he will gradually learn to sit down. Similarly, if you say "Mali"

and pull his trunk forward, he will gradually learn that that is the signal to walk.

Kari learned "Mali" after three lessons, but it took him three weeks to learn "Dhat." He was no good at sitting down. And do you know why an elephant should be taught to sit down? Because he grows taller and taller than you who take care of him, so that when he is two or three years old, you can only reach his back with a ladder. It is, therefore, better to teach him to sit down by saying "Dhat" so that you can climb upon his back, for who would want to carry a ladder around all the time?

The most difficult thing to teach an elephant is the master call.

He generally takes five years to learn it properly. The master call is a strange hissing, howling sound, as if a snake and a tiger were fighting each other, and you have to make that kind of noise in his ear. And do you know what you expect an elephant to do when you give him the master call? If you are lost in the jungle and there is no way out, and everything is black except the stars above, you dare not stay very long anywhere. The only thing to do then is to give the master call and at once the elephant pulls down the tree in front of him with his trunk. This frightens all the animals away. As the tree comes crashing down, monkeys wake from their sleep and run from branch to branch--you can see them in the moonlight--and you can almost see the stags running in all directions below. You can hear the growl of the tiger in the distance. Even he is frightened. Then the elephant pulls down the next tree and the next, and the next. Soon you will find that he has made a road right through the jungle straight to your house.

CHAPTER II

HOW KARI SAVED OUR LIVES IN THE JUNGLE

When Kari grew to be five years old, he was almost as high as the ceiling. He was never trained for hunting. We never thought of killing anything except snakes and tigers, and these we killed when they came toward the village and injured men. So Kari never had the training of a hunting elephant. Just the same, he was very alert and steady in the face of danger, so when it was a question of going into the jungle on the back of an elephant, we generally took Kari with us. During such trips we did not put a cloth of gold on his back or silver bells on his sides. These bells are made in certain parts of India where silversmiths know how to melt and mix silver so that when the clapper strikes the sides of the bell there will be a sound like rushing water. The two bells are tied by a silver chain and slung over the elephant's back, one dangling on each side of him. We never put a _howdah_ on the back of Kari. Very few Hindus put _howdahs_ on elephants.

Do you know what a _howdah_ is? It is a box with high sides inside of which there are chairs for travelers. The _howdahs_ are generally for people who are not accustomed to elephants. They need the high sides so that when the elephant walks they will not fall from his back. They stay in their seats leaning on the edge of the box and see very little, especially children who are not tall enough to see over the sides. That is why Indian children prefer riding bareback on an elephant to taking a _howdah_.

One evening when my brother and I went out, we put a mattress on Kari's back and tied it very tightly with cords so that it would not slip, for it is not pleasant to slip and fall under an elephant's belly and be stepped on. But Kari was trained so that he would not have stepped on us even if we had slipped under him.

We tightened the cords to the mattress, however, and lay down for the night. Though we had bells, we lifted them up and silenced the clappers, so that in walking through the jungle road they would not ring and frighten the animals, for the forest is the dwelling place of silence, and silence being the voice of G.o.d, no man dares to disturb it. We lay on the back of Kari and looked up at the stars. In India, the stars are so close that you can almost pluck them with your hands and the velvet blue of the sky is like a river of stillness running between banks of silver.

As we lay there, unable to go to sleep right away, we heard jungle sounds. The heavy tread of the elephant was like clouds brushing the crests of the forest. Once in a while you could see a tiger come out of the jungle, cross a road and disappear in the distance, but Kari was so brave he never condescended to notice the comings and goings of tigers. Once we heard the bark of a fox very near us and then he came out of the jungle. Kari stopped and the fox pa.s.sed across the road, then we moved on again. In the moonlight which made the road before us look like a river of silver we saw squirrels leaping from branch to branch.

You know, perhaps, that elephants can sleep as they walk.

Presently Kari's walk slackened into a slow pace, and we felt quite sure that he was dozing. Then we remembered nothing, for we too fell asleep. I cannot tell how much time pa.s.sed before we were startled out of our sleep by a terrible roar, a ghastly trumpeting of the elephant and a terrible lunge of his body. We had to hold on to his back very tightly to avoid being thrown off. In a few seconds both of us had turned over--I do not know how--and were lying on our faces, holding on to the cords that held the mattress to Kari's back, while he broke into a run.

Trees bent and broke, branches fell, and we could hear the monkeys stampeding from tree to tree, and flocks of birds, startled out of their sleep, falling upon us, their wings beating our faces. We shouted to Kari to be calm, but he went on as if he were mad. We heard boars snorting, and running away, and strange-looking horned creatures leaping and bounding off in all directions. Then a tree in front of us fell, and the jungle throbbed for a moment. It seemed as though a shiver ran through Kari's body, and he stopped stock still. It was very difficult to tell exactly what had happened until we got off Kari's back. I spoke to him and he shook his head, then I spoke again and urged him to put up his head. He obeyed and I climbed down by his trunk. I felt it was very wet, however, and he shook me off with pain.

My brother spoke to me from above and said when I told him how the trunk felt, "Now I know. You see, this is autumn when bears eat Mohula in the moonlight under the thick shade of the trees.

As you know, Mohula intoxicates bears, and makes them sleepy.

Some bear had fallen asleep under the trees and Kari, who was also asleep and consequently did not even smell him with his trunk, must have come upon him without suspecting his presence.

Although all bears are brought up to respect elephants, this one, no doubt, was so sleepy that he did not know who was upon him and so I am sure he must have sprung up in his surprise and scratched Kari's trunk."

If Kari had been wide awake he would have killed the bear, but being sleepy, the shock and the surprise of the attack and the pain in his trunk frightened him so that he ran out into the jungle mad with terror.

I put my hand on the trunk again. Yes, it was bleeding; I could see in the moonlight that it was not perspiration because my hand was dark red. I spoke to Kari again; this time he did not shake his head so furiously. He was rather willing to listen and I told him I was very sorry about his trunk but could do nothing here, I also told him to go back to the road. He shook his head--that meant "No." Do you know why he did not want to go back to that road? You shall learn at the end of this story.

I got upon his back again. "Since he won't go back to the road,"

said my brother, "we must give him the master call so that he can make a road through the jungle" and we gave him the master call.

At this Kari lifted his bleeding trunk and smote down the first tree, and then he struck down the next tree. He came upon a third which his trunk could not pull down, so he turned around and walked away from it. After taking a few steps he stopped and slowly walked backwards and with one push of his back, knocked this tree down.

At this we could hear the flocks of birds flying in the air and feel the stamping feet below as herds of animals ran in every direction. We heard the vibrant jabber of monkeys from tree-tops, and each time a new tree fell there was more jabbering and more leaping away from tree to tree.

We clung to the elephant's back with our nails and teeth.