ong range of buildings like a large
stable, and here are the elephants and other big animals. Perhaps the
elephant is out earning his living by walking round the Gardens with a
seat on his back, on which anyone can have a ride who likes. He is very
gentle and tame, though his enormous height and great swinging trunk
make him appear rather fearful.

If he is at home, and we pay him a visit, he coils up his trunk or lifts
it over his head, and shows a huge three-cornered mouth, into which, he
gently insinuates, he would like you to throw biscuits. There are both
Indian and African elephants, and the African are generally the larger.

Elephants as a rule have very good characters, and get fond of their
keepers. They are big and gentle; yet in some cases they have suddenly
turned savage without any apparent reason. In the wild state they live
in dense forests, and unless they were very strong and their hides were
very thick they could never get through the trees and shrubs at all; but
they force them asunder with their great strength, and snap the long
twining plants that hang from tree to tree. Any other animal would be
wounded and torn with the spikes and thorns, but the elephant's hide is
as strong as a board. He does not mind prickles, and the only sensitive
part of him is just behind the ear, so when he is tamed a man sits on
his neck, and with a little sharp-pointed spike pricks him behind the
ear on the side he wants him to go. It does not hurt, but the elephant
feels it and soon understands, and follows the directions as a horse
follows the pull of the reins in driving. Elephants live entirely on
green food and vegetables, and never want to eat flesh. In their forests
they can find plenty of food, and they tear down great branches of rich
trees with their long trunks, and then strip the leaves off neatly and
put them into their mouths. When the elephant is thirsty he goes to a
deep watercourse and drinks, and then, sucking up water in his trunk, he
squirts it over his back and sides in a cooling shower-bath.

If you understood elephant language, and came here one evening when the
day's work was done and there were no other people about, you might hear
the elephants talking.

'Those silly fools of humans!' says the Indian elephant; 'not one of
them can throw straight. I can tell you half my time is spent in picking
up the bits of biscuit they mean to throw into my mouth and throw
somewhere else. I would have a sch