Who would expect to see a huge elephant take care of a delicate little
child? Yet more vigilant and gentle nurses cannot be found than are
some of these animals.
The wife of a mahout, or elephant driver, was frequently in the habit of
giving her baby in charge of an elephant. The child would begin, as
soon as it was left to itself, to crawl about, getting sometimes under
the elephant's huge legs, at others becoming entangled among the
branches on which he was feeding. On such occasions the elephant would
gently disengage the child, by lifting it with his trunk or removing the
boughs. The elephant, it should be said, was himself chained by the leg
to the stump of a tree. When the child had crawled nearly to the limits
of his range, he would advance his trunk, and lift it back as tenderly
as possible to the spot whence it had started. Indeed, no nurse could
have attended an infant with more good sense and care than did this
elephant his master's child.