In a village where Colonel Myles was staying, making arrangements for a hunt, there was a large elephant, which belonged to another village some forty miles away.
This elephant was rather an unruly beast, and did not at all like his new quarters, or the new driver who had charge of him.
He seemed to be home-sick, and he gave a great deal of trouble by his uneasy disposition. One day he broke loose, and no sooner did he find himself at liberty than he determined to go home.
So off he started at the top of his speed, but he had not gone far before his flight was discovered, and six or eight negroes, snatching up their swords, immediately gave chase.
They were all on foot, but they could run so fast that they soon caught up with the elephant.
But then all their trouble commenced. He wouldn’t stop!
They shouted, they yelled, they brandished their swords, and running before the great beast, they tried their best to make him stop.
But the elephant, with his trunk and his tail in the air, strode along at a tremendous pace. He did not seem to like his company, for he bellowed loudly as he ran, but they could no more stop him than a lot of spring chickens could stop you if you took it in your head to run home some day in recess-time.
The negroes sprang in front of the elephant, until it seemed as if he certainly would run over them, and they dashed at him from all sides, waving their swords in his face as they shouted to him to halt, but he kept bravely on until the Colonel lost sight of the party.
Together, they ran four or five miles, and then the negroes thought they might as well give up that chase as a bad job, and the elephant went on to his home unmolested.