Umboo, the Elephant

by Howard Roger Garis

"Will they shoot us?" asked Umboo.

"I hope not," his mother said.

But Umboo need not have been afraid of that. Elephants in India are worth too much to shoot. They can be sold to circuses and park menageries.

But, better than this, the elephants in India do much work. They pull great wagons, that many horses could not move, and they work in lumber yards, piling up the big, heavy logs of teakwood, from which those queer, Chinese carved tables and chairs are made, and which wood is also used in ships. The Indians teach the elephants how to pile up big logs very carefully, and so straight that a big pile may be made without one falling off. Besides this the rich men of India, the Princes, own many elephants, which they ride on in little houses, called howdahs which are strapped to the backs of the big animals.

But before the wild elephants can be used thus they must go to school, to learn to be gentle, and to do as their drivers, or mahouts, tell them to do. And so Umboo went to school and I shall tell you about that.

Of course it was not such a school as you boys go to, and the big elephant boy did not have to learn to read and write. But he had to learn the meaning of Indian words, so that when he heard them he would know which meant go to the right or which to the left, and which meant to stand still, to kneel down or to go forward.

But I am getting a little ahead of my story. Umboo was still in the stockade trap with the other elephants. And there they were kept two or three days, without anything to eat or anything to drink. Fast they were kept in the stockade, where they could not get out, and as the days passed, and they felt very badly at not having anything to eat, or anything to drink, the elephants grew more quiet. No longer did they rush at the fence, and fall into the ditch. They huddled together in the middle part, and rubbed their trunks against one another, as men, in trouble, might shake hands.

"Oh, will we ever get out of this, and have sweet bark and palm nuts to eat again?" asked Umboo. "It was almost better to be lost in the jungle, as I was, than it is to be here, for then I had enough to eat. But of course I was lonesome without you," he said to his mother. "But I am hungry now."

"Perhaps they will let us out, or feed us soon," she said.

And, a little while after this, a noise was heard at the strong gate of the trap. It was slowly opened, but the elephants that were caught did not rush out. They feared more danger.