Elephants -- Juvenile literature; India -- Juvenile literature
One day I took them to the bazaar, I on the elephant and the
monkey on my shoulder. When we had reached a mountain of mangoes
round the corner of a lane, the monkey jumped off and climbed up
to the top of the pile. At this the owner of the fruit chased him
away, yelling and shouting. The monkey climbed up the roof of a
house, followed by a crowd. Kari, however, put out his trunk and
helped himself to whatever fruits he liked, eating them with
great relish. The moment he heard the people coming back from the
monkey chase, he ran away--and you may be surprised to know that
when an elephant runs, he can go more than ten miles an hour. By
the time we reached home, Kopee had buried his face in an
enormous mango and was covered with the juice. And you know
that mangoes taste very much like strawberries and cream with
sugar on them.
[Illustration: ONE DAY I TOOK THEM TO THE BAZAAR]
At last we set off for the city, Kari, and Kopee now the best of
friends. It was very interesting at night going through the
jungle country. The moonlight was intense, falling like white
waters on the land. You could see the tree-tops, and at midnight
almost clear down to the very floor of the jungle where the
shadows were thick like packs of wolves crouching in sleep. The
elephant went through these regions perfectly care-free. He did
not care who came or went or what happened.
But not so the monkey. Monkeys, you know, are always afraid of
snakes, and do you know why? Snakes go up trees and eat birds and
their younglings. Monkeys also live by stealing eggs from
different birds' nests. Now it sometimes happens that the snake
eats all the birds' eggs in the nest and is resting there when
the monkey puts his hands in to grab the eggs, so the monkey
instead of getting the eggs is stung to death. As this sort of
thing has been happening for thousands of years, it is natural
that they fear snakes.
Monkeys also get punished for using their hands too much. Now, if
you come across a snake, the best thing to do is not to touch it.
Monkeys, however, accustomed to using their hands continually,
grab a snake whenever they see one with the result that the snake
usually stings them to death. I have never seen a snake do this,
but I have seen dead snakes with marks on their bodies showing
that monkeys had twisted them like ropes, broken their backs and
thrown them down before the snakes could use their fangs. This,
however, is very rare.
As we were going through the jungle that night, Kopee would
shiver with terror whenever there was a swish of a snake's body
in the grass below or in the leaves above, and I had to put my
hand on his back and whisper, "Don't be afraid, you are on the
elephant's back and nothing can touch you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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