in India who wished to
clear some forest land for coffee-planting. When he had cut down all
the trees and burned the under-wood the stumps still remained.
Dynamite is expensive and slow-fire slow. The happy medium for
stump-clearing is the lord of all beasts, who is the elephant. He
will either push the stump out of the ground with his tusks, if he
has any, or drag it out with ropes. The planter, therefore, hired
elephants by ones and twos and threes, and fell to work. The very
best of all the elephants belonged to the very worst of all the
drivers or mahouts; and the superior beast's name was Moti Guj. He
was the absolute property of his mahout, which would never have been
the case under native rule, for Moti Guj was a creature to be
desired by kings; and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl
Elephant. Because the British Government was in the land, Deesa,
the mahout, enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. When
he had made much money through the strength of his elephant, he would
get extremely drunk and give Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over
the tender nails of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the life
out of Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that after the beating
was over Deesa would embrace his trunk, and weep and call him his
love and his life and the liver of his soul, and give him some
liquor. Moti Guj was very fond of liquor--arrack for choice, though
he would drink palm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. Then Deesa
would go to sleep between Moti Guj's forefeet, and as Deesa generally
chose the middle of the public road, and as Moti Guj mounted guard
over him and would not permit horse, foot, or cart to pass by,
traffic was congested till Deesa saw fit to wake up.

There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter's clearing; the
wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Guj's neck and gave
him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps--for he owned a
magnificent pair of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope--for he had
a magnificent pair of shoulders, while Deesa kicked him behind the
ears and said he was the king of elephants. At evening time Moti Guj
would wash down his three hundred pounds' weight of green food with a
quart of arrack, and Deesa would take a share and sing songs between
Moti Guj's legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led
Moti Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously
in the shallows, while Deesa went over