E-text prepared by Sankar Viswanathan, Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 24460-h.htm or 24460-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/4/6/24460/24460-h/24460-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/4/6/24460/24460-h.zip) KARI THE ELEPHANT by DHAN GOPAL MUKERJI Illustrated by J. E. Allen [Illustration: KARI AND KOPEE AND I] New York E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. Copyright, 1922, by E. P. Dutton & Company DEDICATED TO MY ELDEST BORN Nahra Gopal CONTENTS CHAPTER I. BRINGING UP KARI II. HOW KARI SAVED OUR LIVES IN THE JUNGLE III. KARI GOES TO TOWN IV. KARI'S ADVENTURE IN BENARES V. THE JUNGLE SPIRIT VI. KARI'S STORY VII. THE TIGER HUNT VIII. KARI AND THE QUICK-SAND IX. KARI'S TRAVELS X. KARI IN THE LUMBER YARD ILLUSTRATIONS KARI AND KOPEE AND I _Frontispiece_ KARI PUNISHES SUDU ONE DAY I TOOK THEM TO THE BAZAAR THAT VERY INSTANT THE UP-RAISED FOOT OF THE ELEPHANT WAS ON HIS HEAD THE TIGER HAD FOUND HIS KILL IF YOU TOOK A FLUTE AND PLAYED CERTAIN TUNES ON IT, ALL THE SNAKES WOULD COME OUT OF THEIR HOLES AND DANCE TO THE MUSIC WITHOUT ANY WARNING THE MAGISTRATE FIRED IN HIS MADNESS HE MUST HAVE GONE BACK TO THE JUNGLE KARI THE ELEPHANT CHAPTER I BRINGING UP KARI Kari, the elephant, was five months old when he was given to me to take care of. I was nine years old and I could reach his back if I stood on tiptoe. He seemed to remain that high for nearly two years. Perhaps we grew together; that is probably why I never found out just how tall he was. He lived in a pavilion, under a thatched roof which rested on thick tree stumps so that it could not fall in when Kari bumped against the poles as he moved about. One of the first things Kari did was to save the life of a boy. Kari did not eat much but he nevertheless needed forty pounds of twigs a day to chew and play with. Every day I used to take him to the river in the morning for his bath. He would lie down on the sand bank while I rubbed him with the clean sand of the river for an hour. After that he would lie in the water for a long time. On coming out his skin would be shining like ebony, and he would squeal with pleasure as I rubbed water down his back. Then I would take him by the ear, because that is the easiest way to lead an elephant, and leave him on the edge of the jungle while I went into the forest to get some luscious twigs for his dinner. One has to have a very sharp hatchet to cut down these twigs; it takes half an hour to sharpen the hatchet because if a twig is mutilated an elephant will not touch it.