But hush! as we watch this scene a heavy thud, thud, strikes upon our ear, like the tramping of heavy troops upon soft ground. It is the “lords of the forest,” the large Elephants, which, after feeding all day in the shady jungle, are coming down to drink and bathe. What, then, is the history of these huge antiquated animals that they have not come into our story as yet? The reason is this: as they stand alone now with their huge flapping ears, their column-like legs and feet, and their long grasping trunk, so they have stood apart from the hoofed animals almost as long as we have any knowledge of them. So far as we can judge by their skeleton, especially the shoulder blade, they come nearer to the gnawers, or rodents, than to any of the large vegetable-feeders. Their legs are awkward and their gait clumsy, for the thigh bones are enormously long and thick, and the toes are enclosed in a thick pad with only the nails to mark them; but above all it is the head and mouth which make so strange a figure. Look at the huge forehead, showing a skull of immense size. This skull would be far too heavy to carry if it were not full of hollows, making a large framework to bear the tusks of smooth white ivory, which grow out from the upper jaw to a length of more than six feet on each side,[172] and weigh sometimes from eighty to one hundred pounds. Surely a wonderful size for teeth, and we shall not wonder that they are the only front teeth that the elephant has, and that they go on growing all his life from a permanent pulp, like the gnawing teeth of the rodents. But if he opens his mouth you will see that, besides these, he has at the back huge flat grinders, one, or never more than two, at a time on each side; but those are monsters, with hard enamelled ridges for grinding his food. During his lifetime of about a hundred years the elephant grows six of these teeth on each side, twenty-four in all, the new ones growing up at the back and pushing forward as the old ones wear away. [Illustration: Fig. 72. The Indian Elephant.] And, last of all, look at his wonderful trunk; see how it grows out straight from his face, his cheeks merging into it so that he is all nose; and then consider that this trunk, a double-barrelled tube, ending in a fleshy finger opposite to a thick cushion which acts as a thumb, is the elephant’s arm and hand, with which he feels and grasps and tests everything that comes in his way. With it he can pick up a crumb or root up a strong tree, gather a leaf or tear off a branch, draw up a gallon of water to squirt over his body when heated with the sun, or suck up the few drops in a puddle when water is scarce; with it he caresses those he loves, as gently as a mother strokes her child with her hand, or uses it to dash his enemy upon the ground, before he pierces him with his tusks or tramples him under foot.