Elephants -- Juvenile literature; India -- Juvenile literature
When one goes into the jungle, one must remember that there are
laws one cannot break. Do you know that anyone who is afraid or
who hates one of the animals of the jungle gives out an odor
which attracts tigers and wolves? Every day that I was afraid to
go into the jungle, I did not dare to stay on the ground for
fear lest the tigers would smell my presence and attack me. I
climbed a tree instead, because when one is in a tree the odor of
one's body does not go into the forest, and the animals cannot
tell whether one is afraid or not.
It was not an easy job, as you see, to get twigs and saplings for
Kari. I had to climb all kinds of trees to get the most delicate
and tender twigs. As he was very fond of the young branches of
the banyan tree which grows like a cathedral of leaves and
branches, I was gathering some, one spring day in March, when I
suddenly heard Kari calling to me in the distance. As he was
still very young, the call was more like that of a baby than an
elephant. I thought somebody was hurting him, so I came down from
my tree and ran very fast to the edge of the forest where I had
left him, but he was not there.
I looked all over, but I could not find him. I went near the edge
of the water, and I saw a black something struggling above its
surface. Then it rose higher and it was the trunk of my
elephant. I thought he was drowning. I was helpless because I
could not jump into the water and save his four hundred pounds
since he was much higher than I. But I saw his back rise above
the water and the moment he caught my eye, he began to trumpet
and struggle up to the shore. Then, still trumpeting, he pushed
me into the water and as I fell into the stream I saw a boy lying
flat on the bottom of the river. He had not altogether touched
bottom but was somewhat afloat. I came to the surface of the
water to take my breath and there Kari was standing, his feet
planted into the sand bank and his trunk stretched out like a
hand waiting for mine. I dove down again and pulled the body of
the drowning boy to the surface, but not being a good swimmer, I
could not swim ashore and the slow current was already dragging
me down. I clutched at reeds on the shore but they broke and the
weight of the boy was tiring out one hand while the other was
already weak from excessive swimming and clutching at the reeds.
Seeing us drift by in the current, Kari who was usually so slow
and ponderous, suddenly darted down like a hawk and came halfway
into the water where I saw him stretch out his trunk again. I
raised up my hand to catch it and it slipped. I found myself
going under the water again, but this time I found that the water
was not very deep so I sank to the bottom of the river and
doubled my feet under me and then suddenly kicked the river bed
and so shot upwards like an arrow, in spite of the fact that I
was holding the drowning boy with my hand. As my body rose above
the water, I felt a lasso around my neck. This frightened me; I
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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