DEAR POSTMISTRESS,--My teacher gave me as a prize for improvement
in reading, a very entertaining book by E. Warren Clarke. Its title
is _From Hong-Kong to the Himalayas_. I was much interested in the
author's description of his first ride on an elephant. He and a
friend went together, and on the neck of each animal sat a Hindoo
driver, who guided its movements, and punished it when he chose
with a cruel iron instrument, heavy, sharp, and dull, shaped
something like the head of a harpoon. Mr. Clarke found the motion
of the elephant very much like the rolling of a ship at sea. The
elephants moved noiselessly along, picking their steps and avoiding
holes, and sometimes they gathered grasses, leaves, and twigs with
their trunks, and threw them skillfully into their mouths.
"The largest elephant became very thirsty," says Mr. Clarke, "and
as he was quite warm, and we would not allow him to stop and drink,
he made a peculiar plaintive utterance, which seemed to be
understood by the other elephant; the latter came deliberately up,
and placed his trunk in the open mouth of the thirsty one, and gave
him to drink from his own stomach, or some unseen reservoir with
which, like a camel, he appeared to be provided."
Wasn't that kind? I should have loved such a good elephant.
Now, Postmistress, I'll tell you one thing more, and then I'll
stop. This author says that wild elephants do very little harm, and
show good dispositions, not attacking you unless you disturb them;
but an elephant which has once been tamed, and after that relapses
into a wild state, is very dangerous indeed. He acts as if he hated
mankind, and had been made bitter by his dwelling with them; and so
the natives call such a fellow a "rogue" elephant.