Umboo

“ 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." ”

“ But seeing the children remind me of the days in India," added Umboo.
"And it reminded me also," spoke Snarlie. "Well do I recall how little Princess Toto rode on the back of a great elephant like yourself, Umboo, and how it was then I first saw her. Afterward I went to live with her, and there was a palace, with a fountain in it where the water sparkled in the sun."
"What's a palace?" asked Chako, the monkey. "Is it something good to eat, like a cocoanut?"
"Indeed it is not," said Snarlie. "A palace is a big house, like this circus tent, only it is made of stone. ”

“ There is not much more left here to eat. We have taken all the palm nuts and leaves from the trees. We have only been waiting until you grew strong enough to march."
"Oh, I can march all right," said Umboo, telling his story to the circus animals in the tent. "Look how fast I can go!"
Out he started from under his mother's body, striding across a grassy place in the jungle. But Umboo was not as good at walking as he had thought. Even though he weighed two hundred pounds his legs were not very strong, and soon he began to totter. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Keedah was right! It is very easy to knock over a tree when the ground is soft and muddy. Now for some good nuts to eat."
With his trunk Umboo pulled the palm nuts off the tree and stuffed them into his mouth. An elephant's trunk is to him what your hands are to you children.
After he had eaten as many of the nuts as he wanted (and you may be sure that was quite a number, for elephants have big appetites) Umboo tore off a large branch, with nuts clinging to it and started off through the jungle with it. ”

“ A rush of elephants through the jungle to get away from danger is almost as hard to stop as a runaway locomotive and train of cars.
"Can you keep up with us?" asked Umboo's mother of him as he trotted along beside her. "Are we going too fast for you?"
"Oh, no. I can go quite fast now," said the elephant boy, and he really could, for he had grown much in the last few months. Plenty of palm nuts and the bark and leaves of the jungle trees had made him taller and stronger, and his legs were better fitted for running. ”

“ So, though he could see that he was larger than a man, Umboo did not think much farther than this, and so he never made up his mind that, if he wanted to, he could run away, and that no one man could hold him. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ And straight ahead rushed the elephants, toward the place where there was no noise. As they went on Mr. Stumptail looked to either side and saw where the two lines of fence came together into a place like a big ring, and the ring also had a fence around it.
"Look, Tusker!" cried Umboo's father. "Is it all right to go there where the fence is?"
"It is the only place to go to get away from the hunters," said Tusker. "They are behind us and on both sides. Only ahead of us is there none. We must go that way!" ”

“ The ship sailed on and on over the sea, each day coming nearer and nearer to America, which is the land of the circus. And Umboo and the other animals grew tired of being kept below decks, in the darkness. They wanted to get out into the sunshine.
Each day Umboo kept watch for the man who had given him the lemon in the lump of sugar, but the trick-player did not again come down where the elephants were.
And finally, one day, the circus man came down. He quietly rubbed the trunk of Umboo, patted him, and spoke kind words to him, feeding him good sugar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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, and none of the other elephants knew this at the time, but they learned it later, to their sorrow, some of them. When hunters in the Indian jungle wish to capture a lot of wild elephants, to work for them, or to be turned into trick elephants for the circus, the hunters do this. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While Umboo was standing in line, with the other elephants, waiting until it was time for them to go in the big tent, and perform their tricks, such as standing on their hind legs and getting up on small barrels, our jungle friend saw a man coming toward him with a bag in his hand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Stumptail, with a sort of laugh away down in her trunk. "All our family have short, or stumpy tails. That is how we get our name. The Stumptail elephants are very stylish, let me tell you."
"Oh, then it's all right," said Umboo, who was called by that name because he had made that sort of noise or sound through his nose, when he was a day old. And elephants and jungle folk are named for the sort of noises they make, or for something they do, or look like, just as Indians are named. ”

“ And we monkeys can't stand too much water. This felt fine!"
The monkeys in the cage were quite damp, and some began combing out their long hair with their queer little fingers, that look almost like yours, except that their thumb isn't quite the same.
"If Umboo can't squirt any more water on us, maybe he can do something else to help us forget that it is so hot," said Gink, a funny little monkey, who had a very long tail.
"What can he do, except squirt water on us?" asked Chako. "And I wish he'd do that again. It's the only thing to make us cooler." ”

“ 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." ”

“ They were awaiting the arrival of the doctor, who had loitered behind to take leave of Omatoko, and make sure that he had set off on his return to the Hottentot kraal. Frank had had very great difficulty in parrying the importunity of the Hottentots, who were fully convinced that the prosperity of the tribe would be secured for ever, if he would but consent to take upon himself the chiefship, from which they were prepared to eject Umboo without further ceremony. ”

“ In the next, the delay in the return, of the messenger sent southward is interpreted unfavourably to the English, at least Leshoo represents it so. He says the Dutch must have got the better, or the man would have been back before this. Umboo has now quite taken up this notion.”
“Well, what do you advise, Charles?”
“That we go with them without any apparent reluctance, and accept whatever service they ask us to undertake. But as soon as the attack on the Bushmen begins, we will, all of us, make off as fast as we can southwards. There are not very many of the Hottentots going on the expedition. ”

“ They were soon bound with leather thongs, and hurried off to the fountain, where they encountered Lavie and Frank in the same plight as themselves.
“How like lion?” asked Omatoko, jeeringly. “Omatoko lion. He roar well. White boys go catch lion, get caught themselves!”
“I wish I had known it was you,” muttered Nick. “I’d have put a leaden bullet through your carcass as sure as my name’s Gilbert! Well, blackie, what next? Are you going to skin and eat us, now you’ve got us, or what?”
“White boy go back Umboo,” said the Hottentot. “Umboo do as he please.” ”