But you will be pleased to know that in India and other countries of Asia nobody is allowed to kill a wild elephant; for if anyone did so, he would be put into jail. Special hunters are allowed to catch wild elephants alive, as I have already told you; and then the elephants are tamed and trained to do all kinds of useful work, such as to pile logs, build bridges, make roads, and lay water-pipes (see [Frontispiece]). Some of these elephants are also taught to do tricks in a circus, or to carry grand people in a procession.
"Then how do people in India get their ivory, if they never kill an elephant?" you may ask.
They get the ivory when the elephant dies naturally; and the ivory is just as good then as before. Is not that very wise? The people of India first get the help of the elephants in doing all their heavy work, and at last they get the ivory also.
There are huge buildings in India, some of which are more than two thousand years old, which are so wonderful that engineers in America and Europe do not know exactly how those buildings were erected. There is a particular temple on the top of a mountain; and that mountain is 6000 feet high. The ceiling over the center of the temple is a huge circular piece of marble; and that marble ceiling is so large that for a long time people in America and Europe did not know how it was dragged up to the top of the mountain, and then placed over the temple. But now we know that a team of trained elephants was used to do that.
Trained Elephants at the Court of a King
You will be pleased to know, too, that the people who built that temple are called Jains, whom I mentioned in Book I, page 163 (footnote), as the people who are kind to all animals, and who never hurt even the smallest insect. Instead, these mild and gentle people have taught dumb animals to help them build one of the greatest wonders of the world.
How the elephants were taught to do that, I shall tell you in the next Book.