My first exciting experience came very early in my service. I had
learned that the very best use to which I could put my time when not
actually engaged in work was to throw myself on the nearest bunch of
hay and sleep until awakened by the "boss." Having a boy's natural
affinity for an elephant I chose, on this particular day, the hay near
which the Ceylon drove was staked. In the midst of my dreams I was
suddenly awakened by a strange sensation--a peculiar sense of motion
that had something startling and uncanny about it. Then I realized that
I was being lifted in the coils of an elephant's trunk. So intense was
my horror at awakening to find myself in this position that I had
strength neither to resist nor to cry out. My helplessness was my
greatest protection. From sheer inability to do otherwise I remained
entirely passive, and Old Romeo, the king of the drove, laid me gently
down a little distance from the hay on which I had been sleeping. Then
I understood the intelligence of the elephant and the harmlessness of
his intentions. He had eaten all the hay save that on which I was
stretched, and to get at this he had lifted me with as much care as a
mother takes up a sleeping child whom she does not wish to waken.