Howard Roger Garis

“ For animals, even those who live in the jungle, get lonesome, the same as you boys and girls do when you go away from home.
"Well, if I am lost," thought Umboo to himself, as he held the branch of palm nuts, "I must see if I can not find the way home." For though elephants have no real home, traveling as they do to and fro in the jungle so much, Umboo called "home" the place where he had last seen his mother and the rest of the herd. ”

“ Big elephants can hurry through the jungle very fast for as long as twenty hours at a time, stopping, perhaps, only during the very hottest part of the day. And when an elephant is very tired it begins to perspire, or "sweat," over each eye, and two little hollow places there look as though they had been wet with a sponge.
In the cooler part of the shady jungle the elephants rested, some of them pulling down branches from the trees to get at the leaves or tender bark. Umboo began sniffing along the ground with his trunk. ”

“ In the beginning Umboo was very much afraid, because he smelled the man-smell, which Tusker had so often said meant danger. But Umboo grew to know that not all men were dangerous. For, though some might be hunters, with guns and sharp arrows, those who had caught the wild elephants were kind to the big animals.
"I wonder why I am afraid of the man?" thought Umboo. "He is much smaller than I am. His head hardly comes up to my tusks, and some of the tame elephants are even larger than I. Why are we so afraid of the men as to do just as they tell us?" ”

“ I will show you the way through the jungle to where the other elephants are.
"Can you do it?" asked Umboo.
"Surely," replied the snake. "We serpents are the wisest of all creatures, not even excepting you big elephants. For we have to stay so low down on the ground that we would easily be stepped on and killed by other beasts, if we were not wise enough to keep out of the way. So, though I have not seen your mother, or the elephant herd, I can find them for you." ”

“ Can you do that? Smelling out earth-roots is nothing!"
"I think it is something," spoke Umboo. "And, when I get a little bigger my mother is going to show me how to pull over, or knock down, a whole tree. But now I am hungry for roots."
So Umboo kept on sniffing at the ground with his trunk. He was feeling quite hungry. Suddenly Keedah cried:
"Ha! I have found some sweet roots! I am going to dig them up!"
"And I have found some, too!" exclaimed Umboo, as through his long nose of a trunk he sniffed the good smell. ”

“ There were no gardens in that part of the jungle. The fence was put up by hunters on purpose to turn the elephants back, and soon you shall hear why this was done.
"Are we in danger now?" asked Umboo of his father as they hurried along, close beside Tusker.
"No, I think we are all right now," said the oldest, wisest and largest elephant of the herd. "I am going to lead you to the salt springs, where we can taste the salt of the earth. One way is as good as another, and if the fence stops us on one path we will go a new way. ”

“ Stumptail. "All the strong elephants will try to break out. Perhaps it will be all right yet. Listen, Tusker is going to speak."
Tusker, the big bull, raised his trunk and said:
"O, Elephants! I am sorry, but I seem to have led you into a trap. I did not know it was here. I tried to lead you away from the man-smell and away from the danger, but I have led you into worse. Now I will try to get you out. I see what has happened. The hunters made their fences in the jungle so we could only come this way—this way into the trap. But we shall break out! ”

“ Through the jungle crashed the herd of elephants, not going any faster, though, than Umboo and the other small ones could trot along. Though an elephant is very big and heavy he can move swiftly through the forest, and go in places where no horse could travel, for the way would be too rough, and great vines and trees would be strung across the path. Indeed there is no path, the elephants making one for themselves, and when once a herd starts off it can hardly ever be caught by a hunter on foot. ”

“ For it had rained the day before the circus came to show in the town, and the ground was soft.
"Now, Umboo!" called the circus man, who was really one of the elephant keepers, and who gave them food and water, "now, Umboo, let us see if you can get this wagon out of the mud, as you did once before. The horses can not pull it, but you are stronger than many horses." ”

“ He traveled about in India, and other far-off countries, looking for strange animals that he could send to America, across the ocean, where they would be put in cages and tents and shown to boys and girls, and also grown-up folk. You may think a circus is all fun and peanuts and pink lemonade, but it also teaches us something. Without a circus many boys and girls would never know what an elephant looks like; or a lion, or tiger or camel, except, perhaps, by pictures.
"And I'll send this trick elephant over to a circus," said the man who had bought Umboo from the lumber yard. ”

“ He was a good boy."
"Did he ride on an elephant's back?" asked Snarlie.
"I never saw him do that," answered the lion, "though he may have. But the elephants of Africa, where I came from, are wilder, larger and more fierce than those of India, where our friend Umboo used to live. People hardly ever ride on an African elephant's back."
"Well, let us hear more of Umboo's story," suggested Humpo, the camel.
"It seems to me everyone is talking but him."
"That's so," spoke Horni, the rhinoceros. "Please go on, Umboo. Tell us about how you were lost in the jungle." ”

“ He had grown fast since I began telling you about him as a baby drinking milk, and now, though of course he was not as large as his mother or father, nor as strong as Tusker, I must not call him "little" any more.
"Come, Elephant brothers!" cried Tusker. "We will break down the trap fence, and then we shall be free to go out into our jungle again."
But it was not so easy to do this as it was to say it. The men who had built the fences and trap well know that the elephants would try to get out, and the stockade had been made very strong. ”

“ So when Tusker and the others hoped to knock the fence down by hitting, or butting, it with their heads, they found they could not, as the ditch stopped them. They could only just reach the fence by stretching out their trunks; they could not bang it with their big heads as they wanted to.
"Can't we ever get out of the trap?" asked Umboo of his mother when Tusker and the others had found they could not knock down the stockade fence. "Can't we ever get out?"
"And did you ever get out?" eagerly asked Snarlie, the tiger, who, with the other circus animals, listened to Umboo's story. ”

“ Umboo was only one of a number of baby elephants that lived with their fathers and mothers in the deep, green jungles of India. Not like the other jungle beasts were the elephants, for the big animals had no regular home. They did not live in caves as did the lions and tigers, for no cave was large enough for a herd of elephants.
And, except in the case of solitary, or lonely elephants, which are often savage beasts, or "rogues," all elephants live in herds—a number of them always keeping together, just like a herd of cows. ”

“ Stumptail. "You are a very good boy, Umboo, and I shall like these nuts very much. But why did you stay away so long?"
"I was lost," answered the elephant chap. "I could not find my way back after I knocked over the tree. I met a rhinoceros, but he could not tell me where you were. Then I met a kind snake, and she showed me how to find you."
"Well, don't get lost again," said Umboo's mother. "We are glad you have come back, for, as Tusker says, we are about to travel on, and we did not want to leave you behind. So get ready now, we are going to a new part of the jungle." ”

“ For an elephant must have plenty of water.
All this while Umboo kept on digging up sweet roots when ever he felt he wanted some, until he could do it almost as well as his mother or father could.
One day, when the elephant boy was traveling through the jungle he looked up and saw, growing on top of a tree, some palm nuts. Elephants are very fond of these, and will go a great way to get them. There are many kinds of palm trees, and on some grow cocoanuts, and on others dates; but the palm nuts the elephants eat are different. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII UMBOO FINDS HIS MOTHER "Did the snake bite you?" asked Chako, the funny monkey chap, who was hanging by his tail, upside down, listening to the story told by Umboo. "Did the snake bite you?"
"Oh, can't you keep quiet?" asked Woo-Uff, the lion, in his deep, rumbly voice. "Let Umboo alone! He'll tell us what happened."
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Chako. "I was so anxious that I could hardly wait to hear. We monkeys are very much afraid of snakes, you know." ”

“ Of course Umboo did not know, but it is because man, who is also an animal, is put in charge of all the beasts of the jungle, the woods and fields. Animals are given to help man, and to feed him. And as a man has more brains—that is he is smarter than animals—he rules over them. Thus it is that even great elephants, and savage lions and tigers, as well as horses, know that man is their master, and must do as he wants them to. ”

“ The other circus animals liked so much to hear Umboo's story of sliding down hill, that they kept asking him questions about it until nearly dinner time. But when the men came in the tent, bringing hay for the horses, elephants and camels, big chunks of meat for the lions and tigers, and dried bread for the monkeys, then all the animals were quiet for a time—at least they made no noise except chewing. ”

“ Stumptail. "Come, be a smart elephant, Umboo. Use your brains. Elephants are the smartest animals in the world. Think a little and then see what you will do."
So Umboo thought, and then he remembered seeing what the other elephants did when they were hungry, and wanted to dig up tree roots. ”

“ And after their meal they all went to sleep for a little while, those in cages curling up in a corner, and the horses lying down on straw, but the elephants took their sleep standing up, for an elephant, even in the jungle, never lies down except perhaps to roll in water, or a mud-puddle. And the only time they lie down in a circus is when they are doing some trick.
"Now I guess you have slid down hill enough, Umboo," said the elephant's mother to him. "It is all right to have some fun, but there are other things to do in the jungle besides that. You must learn a few things." ”

“ Around the green grass were the big wagons—wagons that needed eight or ten horses to pull, wagons shining with gold and silver mirrors—heavy, rumbling wagons, which Umboo and the other elephants had to push out of the mud when the horses could not pull them. ”

“ For you know that jungle beasts—even the largest of them—like to play and have fun. You have seen kittens at play, and puppy dogs; and little lions and tigers, as well as the smaller elephants, like to do the same thing—have fun.
Umboo was standing on the bank of the river, having just been in for a swim, when Batu, another elephant boy, came up to him. ”

“ Stumptail to Tusker. "Can we wait here another day or two?"
"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Stumptail," said the kind, old head elephant. "You know the herd will never go faster than the mothers and baby elephants can travel."
And this is true, as any old elephant hunter will tell you.
"Thank you," said Mr. Stumptail, to Tusker; for elephants are polite to each other, even though, in the jungle, they sometimes may be a bit rough toward lions and tigers, of whom they are afraid.
Back to the mother elephant and Baby Umboo went Mr. Stumptail, to tell them there was no hurry about the herd marching away. ”

“ His bones, or skeleton, are in a museum in New York now."
"Is New York a jungle?" asked Gink, who had not been with the circus very long.
"New York a jungle? Of course not!" laughed Snarlie, the tiger. "New York is a big city, and sometimes we circus animals are taken there to help with the show. I've been in New York lots of times."
"Well, don't let it make you proud," said Chako, the other monkey. "I have been there myself, and I'd much rather be in the jungle."
"Say, are we going to listen to you animals talk or hear the story Umboo is going to tell us?" asked Humpo, the camel. ”

“ Now all jungle animals are afraid of snakes for the serpents can bite and poison at the same time. So though a snake may not be very strong, he can kill by poison some of the strongest beasts. Thus it was that Umboo, who would have fought even a tiger, was afraid of the snake. ”

“ Another reason why elephants do not live in one place, like a lion's cave, or in a nest or lair under the thick grass where a tiger brings up her striped babies, is that elephants eat so much that they have to keep moving from place to place to get more food.
They will eat all there is in one part of the jungle, and then travel many miles to a new place, not coming back to the first one until there are more green leaves, fresh grass, or new bark on the trees which they have partly stripped. ”

“ So he turned about, and walked off another way, the other elephants following him.
"Who put the fence there, Mother?" asked Umboo.
"I do not know," answered Mrs. Stumptail. "Perhaps the hunters did, so we could not get into their gardens and eat the corn and other things that grow there. Very good things grow in the gardens which the white and black men plant, and, more than once in the night, I have broken in and eaten them. But it is dangerous, and Tusker does not want to lead us into danger. We will keep away from the fence." ”

“ They led him to a sort of stable, and there he found some green fodder, some palm nuts and a tub of water. And Umboo drank the water first, for he was very thirsty. Then he ate and he felt better, though he wondered what had become of his mother.
But he did not wonder long, for elephants, and other animals, are not like boys and girls. They grow up more quickly, and get ready to go about for themselves, getting their own food, and living their own lives. And Umboo was big enough, now, to get along without his mother.
"Were you once living in the jungle, as I was?" ”