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KARI THE ELEPHANT
by
DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI
Illustrated by J. E. Allen
[Illustration: KARI AND KOPEE AND I]
New York
E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
Copyright, 1922,
by E. P. Dutton & Company
DEDICATED TO
MY ELDEST BORN
Nahra Gopal
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. BRINGING UP KARI
II. HOW KARI SAVED OUR LIVES IN THE JUNGLE
III. KARI GOES TO TOWN
IV. KARI'S ADVENTURE IN BENARES
V. THE JUNGLE SPIRIT
VI. KARI'S STORY
VII. THE TIGER HUNT
VIII. KARI AND THE QUICK-SAND
IX. KARI'S TRAVELS
X. KARI IN THE LUMBER YARD
ILLUSTRATIONS
KARI AND KOPEE AND I _Frontispiece_
KARI PUNISHES SUDU
ONE DAY I TOOK THEM TO THE BAZAAR
THAT VERY INSTANT THE UP-RAISED FOOT OF THE ELEPHANT WAS ON HIS HEAD
THE TIGER HAD FOUND HIS KILL
IF YOU TOOK A FLUTE AND PLAYED CERTAIN TUNES ON IT, ALL THE
SNAKES WOULD COME OUT OF THEIR HOLES AND DANCE TO THE MUSIC
WITHOUT ANY WARNING THE MAGISTRATE FIRED
IN HIS MADNESS HE MUST HAVE GONE BACK TO THE JUNGLE
KARI THE ELEPHANT
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 bumped 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 shore. 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 ashore and the slow current was already dragging
me down. I clutched at reeds on the shore 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 lasso 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 ashore.
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 massage 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 massage 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.
[Illustration: 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.