pidly out of the city and I was heart-sick. He went
straight to the river bank and with great difficulty walked down
the steps of the Ghaut and buried all except his trunk in the
water. He stood there knowing that I knew that he had done
something wrong and he was trying to cleanse himself of it. I,
too, took my bath.

Late in the afternoon, we went back and found Kopee still sitting
on the same tree and looking for us, as the caravan had left long
ago. Judging by the banana peels under the trees, we realized he
had had his dinner. Kari and I, however, were very hungry and we
were both sick of the city. We did not want to see it again, so I
called to the monkey to follow and urged the elephant to go on to
the nearest forest. Kopee, with one leap, jumped on my neck as I
sat on the elephant's back.

This ended Kari's expedition to the city. It is better for
animals to be where the jungle is, for the jungle is sweeter and
kinder than that wilderness of stones--the city.

CHAPTER V

THE JUNGLE SPIRIT

It took us much longer to return home. We lost nearly twenty-four
hours in a jungle where we had the strangest experiences of our
lives. We had already covered half the distance when one day at
noon we reached the river across which lay the jungle. It was so
hot that Kari would not go any further. The moment he smelled the
moist earth of the river bank, he literally ran into the water
and lay there. Kopee and I had to sit on his back, while the
waves of the river played around us as the waves of the sea play
around an island. Kari kept his trunk above the water, and when
he moved we almost fell off his back. The monkey clung to me,
for, as you know, monkeys do not know how to swim. There are two
reasons why monkeys are afraid of the water; not only are they
unable to swim because the fingers of their hands are not webbed
together as are ducks' toes, but being accustomed to go through
the air by leaping from branch to branch, they think that they
should leap from place to place in the water.

Seeing that the elephant was wayward, I told Kopee to hold on to
my head. Then I swam ashore and waited for the elephant to come
out. Now that we were off his back, he raised himself a little
above the water and began to draw vast quantities of water up his
trunk and snorted it out at the monkey who was running up and
down the shore, chattering fiercely and keeping at a safe
distance to avoid being drenched.

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