My first exciting experience came very early in my service. I had learned that the very best use to which I could put my time when not actually engaged in work was to throw myself on the nearest bunch of hay and sleep until awakened by the "boss." Having a boy's natural affinity for an elephant I chose, on this particular day, the hay near which the Ceylon drove was staked. In the midst of my dreams I was suddenly awakened by a strange sensation--a peculiar sense of motion that had something startling and uncanny about it. Then I realized that I was being lifted in the coils of an elephant's trunk. So intense was my horror at awakening to find myself in this position that I had strength neither to resist nor to cry out. My helplessness was my greatest protection. From sheer inability to do otherwise I remained entirely passive, and Old Romeo, the king of the drove, laid me gently down a little distance from the hay on which I had been sleeping. Then I understood the intelligence of the elephant and the harmlessness of his intentions. He had eaten all the hay save that on which I was stretched, and to get at this he had lifted me with as much care as a mother takes up a sleeping child whom she does not wish to waken. THE INTELLIGENCE OF ELEPHANTS Only one other instance of elephant intelligence ever impressed me more than this awakening in the grasp of Old Romeo. One of the small members of the drove was trained to walk a rope--or more properly a belt--the width of his foot. This performance attracted the attention of the baby elephant, and one day I noticed the little fellow stealthily unhooking the chain by which he was tethered. Then he boldly attempted to walk the guard chain which surrounds the drove in every menagerie. The same baby elephant, one day seeing the men shoveling to throw up a ring embankment, contrived to get a shovel in his trunk. At once he attempted to stab the blade into the earth. Failing in this effort to imitate the men he flew into a passion and threw the tool to the ground, trampling on it and breaking the handle.