r a mutna (without tusks) worth 2250 rupees, or
$750. On one occasion the mutna heard "the call of the wild," and went
back to the jungle. Evidently, though, his wild brethren didn't like
the civilized ways he brought back with him, for when he returned home
later two thirds of his tail had been pulled off, and he bore other
marks of struggle on his body. The tusker on one occasion ran mad (as
they will do now and then) and killed one of his keepers.

I was also interested to hear how a wild elephant is caught. Driven
into a stockade, the tamed elephants close in {195} on him, and the
mahouts get him well chained before he knows what has happened. For a
day or two he remains in enforced bondage, then two or three of the
great tamed creatures take him out for a walk or down to the river
where he may drink and bathe himself. Moreover, the other mahouts set
about taming him--talk to him in the affectionate, soothing, half
hypnotizing way which Kipling has made famous in his stories, and
stroke his trunk from discreet but gradually lessening distances. In a
couple of months "my lord the Elephant" is fully civilized, responds
promptly to the suggestions of his mahout, and a little later adopts
some useful occupation.

In Siam the elephants are much used in managing the immense rafts of
teak trees that are floated down the rivers for export. My friend the
rubber planter has also had one or two good travelling elephants on
which he used to travel through the jungle from one plantation to the
other, a distance of twenty-five miles. On more than one occasion he
has run into a herd of wild elephants in making this trip. On good
roads, elephants kept only for riding purposes will easily make seven
miles an hour, moving with a long, easy stride, which, however, they
are likely to lose if set to heavy work.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty about the elephant is the great
quantity of food required to keep him going. Eight hundred pounds a
day will barely "jestify his stummuck," as Uncle Remus would say, and
when he gets hungry "he wants what he wants when he wants it," and
trumpets thunderously till he gets it. The skipper on a
Singapore-Rangoon steamer told of having had a dozen or more on board
a few months ago, and their feed supply becoming exhausted, they waxed
mutinous and wrathy, evincing a disposition to tear the whole vessel
to pieces, when the ship fortunately came near enough to land to
enable the officers to signal for