Another tale, for which I do not claim implicit belief, tells of an elephant who with his mahout was engaged to root up bushes in a tea garden. The mahout, like more of his class, was in the habit of going on periodical drinking bouts. Once he asked for ten days' leave to attend a funeral, assuring the Planter that he could instruct his beast to work faithfully under the goad of a substitute who was there and then introduced, while the elephant was formally charged to behave well and work hard during his master's ten days of absence. But the funeral was a very thirsty one, and on the eleventh day the mahout had not returned. The substitute came rushing up to the Planter's bungalow, crying that the elephant refused to work. The British Planter said he would see about that, took his whip, and went to reason with him, but presently came back at his highest speed, followed by the angry beast with uplifted trunk. The coolies ran away in fright, and for two days my lord the elephant roamed round the deserted gardens at his leisure. On the thirteenth day the mahout returned and was received with gladness by the animal, who forthwith set about his work with a will; but they say the Planter, being a bloated capitalist, refused to retain a creature which could go on strike to such purpose as to shut up the whole concern.
Mahouts also believe that when a wild elephant is coming downhill and cannot reach forward with his trunk to sound a dangerous foot-hold, he breaks a sapling and, holding it like an alpen-stock, probes and feels his way. Colonel Lewin tells me of a belief in the Chittagong Hill tracts, that wild elephants assemble together to dance! Further, that once he came with his men on a large cleared place in the forest, the floor beaten hard and smooth, like that of a native hut. "This," said the men, in perfect good faith, "is an elephant nautch-khana"—ballroom. It is a common remark that stout people are often light dancers, and sometimes most eligible partners. The elephant, in spite of his bulk, is both on land and water a very buoyant person, quick on his feet and, in his deliberate way, as clever a kicker as a mule, which is saying a great deal. There is therefore no reason why he should not dance, and I confess to a deep envy of the Assam coolie, who said he had been a hidden unbidden guest at an elephant ball. Elephants are easily taught to dance by American and European circus trainers; and it is recorded by an American trainer that elephants off duty, left entirely to themselves, have been seen to rehearse the lessons they have learned. Let us believe, then, until some dismal authority forbids us, that the elephant beau monde meets by the bright Indian moonlight in the ballrooms they clear in the depths of the forest, and dance mammoth quadrilles and reels to the sighing of the wind through the trees and their own trumpeting, shrill and sudden as the Highlander's hoch!
It is firmly believed that dead elephants are buried by their kind. Mr. Sanderson admits that he is unable to account for the total absence of their remains in the jungle, and so gives us leave to share for once in an Orient mystery, dim and inscrutable. The free-thinking native who solves it by boldly claiming that the great beasts, left to themselves, do not die at all, does not diminish the marvel, which still remains to delight all those who love to wonder.
It is natural that a creature so highly esteemed should be made to reflect the popular conception of Hindu character in its weaknesses and failings as well as in its placid and gentle strength. He is believed with little cause to be keenly sensitive; they say he breaks his heart like a proud Rajput, and dies at will of resentment or grief. So do some Orientals. He is said to have a memory for insult or injury as tenacious as that of a usurer for a debt, and soon or late he will be even with his oppressor. He can be taught to master his natural timidity, and when properly led he will face the tiger in his lair, but he is not ashamed to fly before a little dog. In sickness he comes very close to the human, for the mahouts say he resigns himself like a native when stricken with fever; when he lies down they give him up, for he gives up all hope of himself, and against a despair of that bulk there is no argument. He is liable to sudden bursts of rage, and can sulk in ill-temper for days at a time. When downright mad nothing can stand before him. Death in Hindu poetry and talk is a mad elephant, for who shall stay him? Love and lust are also mad elephants, blind, unreasoning, and cruel.
"There are many footsteps in the footprint of the elephant," for elephant lords have many followers. In most native forts and palaces there are elephant paths and high-arched elephant gates, slopes or stairways of wide tread, down which the State elephants march, taking the women of the Zenana or their lords for an airing. The milky way in the heavens is sometimes called the elephant's path. Silver ingots of a certain shape are "elephant's feet" and among silversmiths the name is used to discriminate a quality of silver.
AN ELEPHANT GOAD (ANKUS)
In Assam, where they are familiar with elephants, they say, "The elephant brings forth one at a birth, the pig ten." "A small elephant is still larger than a big buffalo," and "Bamboos are tied with bamboos and elephants are caught by elephants," are also sayings from that region. Where the Englishman would say the back of a job was broken, or "All is over but the shouting," an Oriental often says, "The elephant is out, only the tail remains." "Teeth for use and teeth for show," carries an understood allusion to the elephant, who has tremendous molars hidden in his head as well as handsome external tusks. Sometimes for state occasions an animal with poor or elementary tusks is fitted with a jury pair, a feat of dentistry of which mahouts are proud. To the over-bold who would meddle with the great it is said: "Would you snatch sugar-cane from an elephant?" "The dog may bark but the elephant moves on" is sometimes said to indicate the superiority of the great to popular clamour, but the best form of the phrase is, "Though the dog may bark the caravan (kafila) moves on." For the elephant hates and fears dogs as much as some great men of to-day hate noisy newspapers, and with better reason. Nature, in furnishing the beast with a soft and tender trunk, has bound him down to keep the peace with all creation. That in spite of this disability he can be brought to face the tiger shows convincingly the docility and superiority of his nature. Yet though the beast is counted lordly, he still has a master, so they say again, "The elephant's god is his goad." Big things and men are naturally called elephantine. Maharaja Ranjit Singh used to speak of the fine English cart-horses sent out to him as a gift from the English Government as his "elephant horses," and he tied them up and fed them to death in the native fashion with great pride and satisfaction. "When the handed one puts forth his handiness, a man is but a fly before him," is a clumsy paraphrase of a saying that plays with the word hāthi. "The poor have no friends, but elephants wait at the rich man's door," is one of the rare complaints of Indian lowliness. It is doubtful whether any other races in the world are more free from envy. The beggar cries, "God will give you an elephant to ride on, I'll take a farthing to-day." When English girls marry, their parents say they are sorely grieved to lose them; but Indian fathers are frank, and acknowledge at once the trouble and cost of daughters and elephants in "The daughter is best at her father-in-law's house, as the elephant is best at the Raja's."
A man's saying is "A man at sixty is a young elephant, a woman at twenty is growing old." There is a fine braggadocio in this, but the honest truth is that the Indian woman has not a fair chance, being deliberately sacrificed by the custom of too early marriage. English poets write prettily of Hindu maidens, but there are no Hindu maidens in any true sense. A brutal saying like this drives home the fact that millions of girls, bright and charming as any in the world, are deprived of that period of spring-time freedom and lightness of heart which is their birthright. Nor is there any excuse for this deprivation, for it has been demonstrated that the Indian woman comes no earlier to maturity than her sister in the West. And the Hindu man at sixty is like a young elephant in nothing save bulk.