ained elephants there handle the
heavy saw-logs which it is necessary to move from place to place. It
was better than a circus.

"Elephants a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek."

It is very clear that my lord the Elephant, like most other beings in
the Tropics, doesn't entirely approve of work. What he did at Ahloon
on the morning of my visit he did with infinite deliberation, and he
stopped much to rest between tugs. Also when some enormous log, thirty
or forty feet long and two or three feet thick, was given him to pull
through the mire, he would roar mightily at each hard place, getting
down on his knees sometimes to use his strength to better advantage,
and one could hardly escape the conclusion that at times he "cussed"
in violent Elephantese. The king of the group, a magnificent tusker,
pushed the logs with his snout and tusks, while the others pulled them
with chains. But the most marvellous thing is how the barefooted,
half-naked driver, or mahout, astride the great giant's shoulders,
makes him {194} understand what to do in each case by merely kicking
his neck or prodding his ears.

At one time while I watched, a tuskless elephant or mutna got his log
stuck in the mud and was tugging and roaring profanely about his
trials, when the tusker's mahout bid that royal beast go help his
troubled brother. Straightway, therefore, went the tusker, leaving
great holes in the mud at each footprint as if a tree had been
uprooted there, gave a mighty shove to the recalcitrant log, and there
was peace again in the camp.

For stacking lumber the elephant is especially useful. Any ordinary
sized log, tree or piece of lumber he will pick up as if it were a
piece of stovewood and tote with his snout, and in piling heavy plank
he is remarkably careful about matching. Eying the pile at a distance,
he looks to see if it is uneven or any single piece out of place, in
which case he is quick to make it right. The young lady in our party
was also much amused when the mahout called out, "Salaam to memsahib"
("Salute the lady"), and his lordship bowed and made his salutation as
gracefully as his enormous head and forelegs would permit.

One of my fellow-passengers, a rubber planter from the Straits
Settlements, has worked elephants, has used them on the plantation and
as help in building bridges, and has told me some interesting stories
concerning them. He had two--one a tusker worth 2500 rupees, or
$833-1/3, and the othe